Motherhood, Madness, God and Me

Sometimes getting out of bed is so hard. Like really, really hard. The thought of facing people and pretending you are full of Easter joy when inside your heart is certainly not focused on the gift of the resurrection but instead on how much people hurt you. How continued rejection and lack of encouragement overwhelm you and you fall foul of your sinful heart again and again and again. Please pray for me. I don't need likes or replies, I need prayer. I need to stop hoping in people. Even Christians. I need to empty my heart of the illusion I should matter to anyone else. I need to be satisfied with the love of God only. I need an Easter miracle. Or to remember I've already had one. Please pray for me.

Yesterday's Lent Challenge Prompt was "still". This is what I came up with. Still: I've been thinking about the meaning of this one for a couple of days. The Hebrew root of "be still" is "let go". I've been drawn to a few verses. Psalm 37:7 Be still and wait patiently on the Lord. Oh how I struggle with this. Pretty much every word. Wait?? Patient?? Still? Currently I'm 1 year into my depression. 1 year. I'm very impatient. This isn't how it was meant to be. I started off being still. Letting go was what started this. I waited on the Lord, to begin with. My sense of timing and His are obviously out of sync! Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God" Let go, rest. God has it in hand. I don't often feel still. My body is often still. My mind never is. My mind is full of 'what if'. It's like I could do with reprograming. Getting rid of all the useless files and reloading with the simplest software. Jus...

Originally written July 2017 Where is God in Mental Illness: The suicidal Christian on the Psych ward. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He is close to the broken-hearted and the marginalised in society. Jesus called to him the widows, prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers and 'unclean' women. He came for those with no voice. There are many people here with a very loud voice; in the midst of a psychotic episode or just downright frustration. It may be loud but it is a voice often quietened, snuffed out. If Jesus wanted to look for some oppressed lost souls, the psych ward would be the first place to look.

Did you know heartache can be a physical pain? You are overwhelmed with sadness and in your chest you feel your heart breaking. Now I have a Batchelor of Science, I know my heart is not really being torn in two. It feels like it. The pain in my chest when I become overwhelmed. Heart ache is real. It physically hurts. As tears roll silently down my face I want to scream out in pain. Death would be a welcome relief both from the physical pain and the emotional. I cry out to God. I feel so distant from others. My friends, my family. I desperately want to feel their love but interactions seem to remind me that I am being punished. That nobody understands. I desperately want to share these feelings. Nobody understands though. That makes the heartache worse. I know I am not alone. God hears my cry. Today we ended Psalm 119. When all your emotional connection feels distant you can still rely on the unchanging word of God. So I repeat truth from the bible. I remind myself I am covered i...

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hearing-god-in-the-midst-of-suicidal-thoughts I found this article whilst trying to convince myself God would understand if I killed myself, or that God didn't want me, or anything that might make it easier for me to escape the darkness. I really found it helpful to look at it from a sin point of view. Not in the way Job's friends did, blaming Job for his suffering. Instead that the world really is a dark, depressing place. To feel the weight of this fallen world is accepting that Jesus really is the only answer. It's my sin, but also that sin has corrupted the whole world. I still feel terrible that despite knowing and desperately wanting to see my true worth in God, knowing he has plans for me, knowing that suffering is only temporary and doesn't compare to the joy that is coming, I still felt I had no escape. No other option. Am I that faithless? Even though, as I lay dying, I was calling out to Him to take me, to save m...