The Psalms as support

I'm not feeling very good at all. In a downward spiral again, though I have level times as well. But being alone, my husband away, doesn't help. A friend suggested I find some Scripture to help me. I turned to the Psalms. Had a bit of trouble finding something I could really latch onto that I found helpful, but eventually did find Psalm 6.

Peer support is such a blessing. To hear people talk about their struggles with depressed thoughts and feeling and to realize you're not the only person to feel that way gives comfort. That must be why the Psalms are such a comfort during hard times. To read King David's words expressing his emotional pain is as good as an antidepressant, especially when he ends with praises to God. He helps me remember that God hears me and that He loves me.

O Lord, do not rebuke me in anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?
Turn, O Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.

and then:

The Lord has heard my cry for mercy;
the Lord accepts my prayer.

Psalm 6:1-4 and 9.

God loves loving us

I've got to share something with you here, something that came as a revelation to me and it might to you too.

I have a good friend who is a troubled person, having suffered a lot of abuse as a child and later as the wife of an abusive husband. She suffers recurring emotional pain because of this, yet I admire her for the courage she has had to survive. I love her dearly and tell her this often.

Yesterday I told my counselor what it meant to me to tell my friend how very much I love her and how I love to hug her. It gives me a wonderful feeling to do that. She's the sponge and I'm the water, pouring my love into her.

My counselor said something that had never occurred to me before. If I love showing my love to this friend so much, imagine how God must feel when he loves us as much as he does. We can't "...grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." (Ephesians 3:18) Imagine how good God must feel when he pours his love into us - such broken people - and when we accept that love like a sponge soaking up water.

Do you get it? Do you understand? All of us are broken people - needy people - thirsty for God's love. Yet it can be so hard to truly own that love.

When we express our love to others, we can think of God and his love, and let that love flow through us to our friends. And in the process we experience God's love.

Understanding this was very comforting.

With the comfort we have received

The need for support when we have bipolar disorder is proving to be an important topic of discussion. Yet there seems to be no definitive answer. The answer seems to be different for everyone.

Over the last couple of days I've felt okay - especially after some prayer with a friend. I've been steady. Yet right this minute I'm a bit fragile - truly a bipolar thing, eh? Don't worry please, though. Though I've appreciated all your comments and support, things are not that bad at all.

We need to be more concerned about people like Brenda who has lived in blackness for some time now. I've known that kind of blackness and feel for her. She needs a lot more support than I do. I do hope you'll visit her and get to know her.

And I'm so grateful for Susan's support, online and off. She has been a great friend. She too knows thoroughly what depression is like, though I think you're more worried about me than you need to be, Susan:) For more discussion on the topic of support I hope you'll visit her site.

But maybe I'm feeling as well as I do right now precisely because I've had such good support.

I believe that the comfort and support that we receive from others is God-given. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 is so applicable to all this. Through the comfort we receive from others, we can turn around and comfort others.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Thank you all for being there. Let us continue to be there for each other.

Love and depression

"The Lord your God is with you,...he will quiet you with his love." Zephaniah 3:17

Knowing that God loves us and that others love us is so important, and when we're depressed it becomes even more important. Love comforts us and heals us.

I can so identify with that little girl in this picture. I feel like I need to be comforted in the way this girl is being comforted. I'm such a child. Is it just me? Or do we all, at times in our lives, not need that kind of comfort?

Last night a friend told me she loved me. How good it was to be told that! And I told her I loved her too. And how good it was to be able to tell her that! We connected. And God was in that. God was with us in that. Through her I felt God's love.

This morning, though I'm still fragile, I feel God's love and comfort. What really helps is knowing I have people who care about me, people who support me. I'm very grateful for them - very grateful for God's love, expressed through them.

Today I'll be getting together with my son and going to Mom's old place to do some more cleaning up. Fill the car up once more with boxes. After today, we'll maybe need one more time out there. It will be so good to get all that done. Of course, now I have a huge collection of boxes at my house that will need to be sorted through. We're giving a lot away, yet there are family things that need to be kept. I need to find a place for them. Lots of work! And - if you're familiar with my blog - you'll know how poor I am about cleaning things up.

Being with my son today will be good. I don't get the chance very often. Perhaps we'll have time at the end of the day to visit Mom together. It has been a couple of days since I saw her and I long to visit again.

I hope you are all doing well and pray that you too will sense God's love for you today.

Art for comfort

I've been having off and on days when I feel like depression is threatening and have been trying to treat it in whatever way I can with healing activities. Yesterday I felt insecure, like I used to feel as a child. Why does that happen to me? Maybe I need some counseling.

I remember well one day when I was a seven-year old at a health treatment center (where I had to stay for six traumatic weeks - away from my family). I had accidentally gotten locked up in a bathroom and was left behind when all the other children went for a walk in the forest. I panicked and yelled and screamed and cried. A nurse heard me and let me out. As I cried bitterly, she comforted me and took me to a table by a bright window. There she set me to drawing and coloring. I will never forget how I felt and how doing the creative work helped me through this time.

So now when I'm feeling a bit down - or insecure as I did yesterday - I feel like that child once more as I draw and paint. Creative work is a wonderful healer. And I have something to show for it at the end.

The drawing I posted here is partially copied from another drawing as an exercise. It's set in my native country, Holland. I'd like to post some more original work but my husband has to hook my scanner up to the computer first. Currently I most enjoy - and have the most success - drawing European street scenes with India ink and then painting them with watercolors. I can do them because they involve straight lines and I can handle those. I've been working from photographs my husband took earlier this year.

God leads - through highs and lows

Sharing a neat little poem I friend sent me last night. Very comforting.

He Leadeth Me

He leadeth me.
In pastures green? No, not always.
Sometimes He who knoweth best
In kindness leadeth me in weary ways
Where heavy shadows be;
Out of the sunshine warm and soft and bright,
Out of the sunshine into the darkest night.
I oft would yield to sorrow and to fright
Only for this: I know he holds my hand,
So, whether led in green, or desert land
I trust, although I cannot understand....


So whether on the hilltops, high and fair
I dwell, or in the sunless valleys, where
The shadows lie--what matter? He is there.
And more than this; where'er the pathway lead
He gives to me no helpless, broken reed,
But His Own hand, sufficient for my need.
So where He leads me I can safely go,
And in the blest hereafter I shall know
Why in His wisdom He hath led me so.


Anonymous

Play as comfort for the soul

I thank everyone who commented on my last post. You are encouraging me to keep on with my new painting hobby.

Over the last few days I've been thinking of how comforting creative activity can be. I remember times in my life when it was very much soul food for me.

When I was seven years old I was sent away from my home in Amsterdam to stay at a place we called a "colony." This was an institution in the countryside for city children who were unhealthy. Here we stayed for six weeks while the nurses tried to fatten us up by feeding us lots of starchy foods - lots of bread. Parents were only allowed to visit half way through this six week period. I stayed in one of these places two years in a row.

It was a traumatic time for me, a shy little girl who found it hard to be away from home. I remember the nurse's harsh command to us at bedtime to lie facing the same direction, a ploy to keep us from talking. I remember the shrill yelling at me to get into the shower in the steamy institutional bathroom where we had all lined up naked. "Get in there! Now!" I was terribly frightened, since I had only taken baths in our zinc washtub at home. I was afraid of the hot water splashing all over my face.

One day I got locked into the bathroom by accident while everyone else went out for a walk. I panicked. Here I was, all alone, with no one to hear me. I cried and screamed. Finally, someone did come and let me out. This nurse was kind and compassionate. She got me settled at a table by a window with some coloring pencils and paper. Here, with the warm sunshine pouring down on me, I enjoyed a peaceful hour by myself, looked after by someone who cared about my feelings. That was one of the few enjoyable times I had in that place.

Throughout my adult life, ever since I first got sick at the age of nineteen, I have turned to creative activity to help me through depressions and to keep depression at bay. The solace of quiet playing with paints, photoshop, or embroidery thread restores me. Making something beautiful with my heart and hands is powerful medicine. It feeds my soul.