Fellowship with Jesus

Although I hesitated to share my last post with you, wanting you to be able to trust me as a leader, I did need to be honest. My readers need to understand the effects of bipolar disorder on us. If I'm going to be honest - which I always try to be - I need to share the hard stuff too.

But please know, that in my quiet time this morning I've come to a different place.

Shortly after I wrote my last post I emailed my pastor saying, "[my good friend] would probably be reminding me that it's the evil one getting me down. He likes to attack at times when he feels his own work most threatened. I need to fix my eyes on Jesus and remember how He suffered but did not give up. He died and rose again. And I must rise again - up from the death - the lifelessness and emptiness of depressed feelings. I must take God's hands and arise again - up from what was like a death bed last night. There's work to be done. Yes, I'm reaching for God's hand this morning."

My pastor has often quoted Philippians 3:10-11, his life verses - something I've in the past had a lot of trouble understanding. But this morning I fully understand them:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.