A Side Trip

As I let my mind wander, I’m taking yet another side trip from the Haiti story to what I woke this morning to write about, which is a topic relevant to my title. I have come up with a weird analogy of my state of mind periodically.  The state of depression for me right now is like being a passenger in a hurricane hunter plane; you’re going right through a storm. You seem somewhat safe in the plane because it’s a stout aircraft and is piloted by capable well-trained pilots (aka my doctors). Still, every time I go through the turbulence of anxiety and hopelessness, I begin to think that the 3 Stooges are at the helm, and we’re going to crash any moment.  Then we make it through to eye of the storm, where my home and family and my brief stops at my Bible Study Fellowship class, church, quiet times at home with my family, and Bear my dog give a reprieve to the unnerving journey. Then it’s back into the storm again. I look up in the eye, and I see peace from above the heavens and wonder why things are so dangerous around me.

I’m trying to fly the plane myself and find that, hell, I’m about as good at this as they are. God is my compass, but it is swinging back and forth between faith and despondence. I cling to a sense of direction through prayer so that I don’t end up getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle(too much Science channel, my guess).  I become so frustrated with myself because “here I am mentally paralyzed when folks coming home from war with arms, legs missing, trama from the horrors of war, those around me battling cancer and the like seem to find their place and start anew. I’ve lost some eyesight that makes me not safe to drive, Big deal! And yet, by comparison, my bar is low.  I surmise that we, no matter what the severity of our state is, we all share the despair of being left behind.  Everything we thought we used to do, relishing in what we got right and repenting for what was not so right, still isn’t enough to “put us back together.” I wish I had a quick cure for that. If I did, I would practice the posed question “physician…heal thyself”.  I have help.  I have prayer partners and close friends and family, and THAT’S what keeps me from losing my mind.  My neurologist just defaults to “the brain is complicated, and we don’t know a lot about how it works” (thanks captain obvious!).  I think my happy neurons got disconnected when my afib heart decided to wig out and threw a clot (so the experts say). I’m giving up the big problems to God; let Him work them out. That Isaiah 55:8 thing about my(God) thoughts are not your thoughts my(God) ways are not your ways, is a tough one to grasp when you are built with your DNA like mine; that says, “quit wasting time GET IT DONE.”

Here’s a good read if you need a little encouragement to the fact that God does exist, and he wonderfully created us even though we honestly don’t always “feel the love.” Imagine how He and Jesus feel/felt with us self-centered slugs daily, blaming Him for all our problems.  The book is by Francis Collins,  noted genome scientist and believing Christian called The Language of God.

For this post, this is all I’ve got, but I would encourage anyone reading this to share with me your trek through life we may have crossed paths and not known it.  Later today, I’ll try to finish the Haiti thing and have it in my next post.  Thank you, my followers, feel free to pass this down the line if it helps someone you know.