Holding my arms up to the Lord


Its been over a week since I typed anything.  The dinning room table got refinished, the hutch that didn’t match the table; now does thanks to a coat of paint and some paint treatments.  I went on a camping trip last week with some friends.  I managed to get some rest, some exercise and have a lot of fun.  I also managed to spend some time with a pastor friend of mine.  We sat for a long time and talked about a bible verse I have been wrestling with and we talked endlessly about my depression and how attacked I have felt and how hard it has been for me to deal with.  It was good and it was helpful and I left better.  I went to church Sunday morning and played in the youth band and my heart sang with great leaps and my spirit uplifted.  I gave flesh to my words but they were words of Praise and words of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Creator of the world God himself.

Rereading this paragraph I think what a nice ending of a terrible horrible couple of weeks.  But I can’t say I am rejoicing.  Don’t get me wrong, I am praising God for delivering me from the darkness that I put myself in.  I am Thankful for friends and a wonderful husband  to support me. I am humbled by the thoughts from God that have come to me to open the verses I have not understood till now from the bible.  BUT.  There is always a but. As I rejoice in this wonderful place to be I know that this is not the end.  It is not over.  Today I stand in victory.  Tomorrow will be ok, and I may be fine for weeks.  But it will come again.  The darkness creeping up and the attacks again.  What a killjoy eh?  Don’t get me wrong I do appreciate, and love the place I am right now.  It is like falling in love only to have your heart-broken.  You repair the heart and someone else comes along and it is wonderful and lovely and you think this could be the one and as you consider giving your heart out again, you can’t help but remember the broken heart you just repaired.   Today my unfaithful mind is functioning, tomorrow??????????  This is the delema this is the thing that lurks around in the back of the mind.  Is there a next time? When is the next time? will it interfere with my plans, will it be something I can ‘t resist? Or will this be the time of a complete break down?

I think the only plan of action I can take right now, is to get together with my pastor and my best friend and pray.  I need time to prepare for the next time.  If the next time does not come great! but I don’t know for sure but I do know that in order to fend off the darkness I need to embrace the light and to build the wall around me in the name of the Almighty.

God be with my mind as I heal after the past few weeks of battling.  Help me to rely on you. Forgive my unbelief and continue to protect me.  You continue to teach me so much, continue to lead me, protect me, feed me, show me, so that I can walk in your ways.  And most of all I pray the prayer that never fails.  “In name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, may your will be done.”   Amen.

Till next time……………………….

Darkness of Gods Hand


The book of Job, God allows all thatJob loves and holds dear on this earth to be destroyed.  So that God can show the devil that Job is a man of God and will not turn his heart or tongue against God.  Did he grieve, did he feel the pain of losing everything, yes.  Did he turn himself from God. No.  I feel that I would not do so good at not speaking against God. Oswald Chambers talks of being held in the darkness of Gods hand to learn how to listen.   It is in the depths of struggle we learn more about ourselves, I think, than at any other time.

I have been in that struggle lately.  It is a heart/head  struggle.  I have written lately of the pain of the negative voices that haunt me these days.  There is also a struggle of light and dark too.  It’s not just voices fighting against voices.   It is a struggle of pain and confusion.  I am struggling against a deep pain I do not understand.  I feel it deep within but not understanding its source.  This makes me confused and unsure of how or what I am feeling.  I was reading a book written by a christian woman who wrote about the promises of God and clinging to them when you are in that dark place.  I can’t read this book when I am in …. this place.  It’s hard to describe where I am.  It’s not dark nor evil.  I am on a plain neither knowing which way to go.  My left and my right look the same.  I do now know which way will lead me to God or away from God.  I don’t understand this pain in my heart.  I am confused about direction, scripture, understanding.  I do know God will not forsake me.  The longer I stand still on this plain the more I feel anxious.  I should be moving, I have to progress, but I am loss.  I continue to look left, right, slowly turning but not seeing anything– every angle looks the same.

Maybe  this is why I want to run, or turtle.  I should move, I feel to stay here is dangerous.  I feel there is something I should be understanding or get that will move or protect me or lead me, but its like I can’t quite grasp what it is.  A whisper I don’t quite hear or understand.

So today I stand here– feeling the depth of this pain in my heart, and pray that God open my ears to hear and my eyes to see, for I can not rely on my own understanding, or know which way to go.

Maybe that is the point

Till next time ……………………….

Happy Canada Day.


Since my last panic attack in my doctor’s office, I have been good.  I managed to get through a very stressful time at work and spent the long weekend with my family camping which has been wonderful.  It is always a reconnect with my kids and husband. No one else just us, hanging out, swimming at the beach, campfires, sleeping, reading, playing games.  It was a good time to spend together.  My kids are teens so they understand that Mom isn’t quite right.  They saw my breakdown, they have seen me shaky and panicked.  We spent some quality time together one on one and discussed what all this means and why I am going through what I am going through. They have been very supportive and were glad to have all the dots connected for them.  I am sad that I have to explain that Mom is losing it.  But they appreciated being told and treated like adults and in the end we all came closer.  God does take all things and use it to his good.  I have been good lately so it was a good time to talk and connect and plan our summer and how we want to handle the next wave if it comes.  

 A.W. Tozer wrote in his classic We travel an Appointed Way “to a child of God, there is no accident.  He travels an appointed way”  So how does my depression work to God’s good. My mind falls apart, my emotions betray me how can that be good?   How can any tragedy work to God’s good.  My father was hit by a car, died instantly.  How does that work to God’s good.  A family devastated by the needless death of the Father who held the family unit together.   That now lays in ruins, a brother doesn’t talk to others cause he never really recovered, grand children who never knew the love of a Grandfather.  A wife now a widow missing her beloved husband.  The pain of the broken-hearted in this life goes on and on and on.  Evil runs rampant. hurting, stealing, lieing. Where is the good in any of this. Where is the Love?   Where is the Grace?  Where is God?  Cause sometimes I feel he is very far away.

  We can have hope.  Romans 8:  22-27 and  31

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose.

More Than Conquerors

 31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

We have hope in that God who is greater than me on my best days, will look after me because he Loves me, created me.  I fail and I am in a fallen world.  Evil lives  in this world, but God loves us so abundantly that he takes our pain and makes it into joy.  If we trust him.  I take courage and comfort and strength from the promise that in the midst of the brokeness the Holy Spirit intercede for us with groaning that  corresponds to the depth of the pain I am in.  And when in the darkness no words can express the protection from  evil I need and the help I need.  This prayer partner in heaven is all-powerful and all-knowing whispering the things of God that I need to know and comunicating the things deep with in my heart and soul that I need to but can’t tell the Lord.  God had provided. God never breaks a promise.

Every bad turn, every broken moment till now, every tear I have shed brings me one more step closer to knowing and relying on God. God has taken the pain, the events of my life and gave me a chance to rely on him and in turn he loves me and protects me.  He is expanding my heart in a way I have never known God before.  I am seeing his shelter in the midst of this storm. He has prepared a cleft for me to hid in. ” I look to the mountains from where will my comfort come from- From the Lord the creator of heaven and earth. ”

These are the things that God has been reveling to my heart as I have prayed and meditated this long weekend.  It is the recovery after the latest storm.  Where you asses what the damaged is, and where the storm has left you.  It left me a little stronger, which is again part of Gods plan to take this storm and turn it into his good.  I don’t know where you are in the storms of your life, but God; if you ask, will take you by the hand and help you walk on the water,  so you can over come the swells and reach dry land.  Just Ask, Reach, hold onto.

I am drowning in the depths of despair the darkness closes in,

 but a light is reaching for me

I can scarcely kick to keep my head above the water, do I want to?

But a light is reaching for me.

I am tired, tired of the pain, the darkness, the hurt, the fighting, I do not want to fight the good fight anymore?

But a light is reaching for me.

Ok– I will take the light hand, it will not leave me, it keeps beckoning me, calling me.

But a light is reaching for me.

This energy! This Shock! This Love! This light!

But a light is reaching for me

This hope grabs my heart and leads me to my Lord. I sit upon the lap of Jesus like a child.

I lay my head upon his chest. Safe, no more to fight, shelter, in the love of the Lord. Peace.

                                                            Till next time peace be with you.