Gratefulness part II

Gratefulness part ii… Yesterday’s post dealt with gratefulness, and there was a question that would have made the post way too long: “But how does having burn outs and severe depression tie into faith? That’s totally illogical, right? Because if you have faith, then you should never ever be depressed and let alone need psychologists, psychiatrists or gasp: medication, right?”

Technically, yes. Let’s look at it from a logical perspective. We serve God, who created the universe. By the way, as a side note, my belief is based on the Bible. (Quite an important aspect don’t you think? haha). Now if God created the universe, logic would dictate that He is above all – meaning He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omni something else. (Don’t fault me for not knowing everything right out of the top of my head please!)

Another important factor to weigh in, is that we also know that God is love. So, if He is omni-all, and He is love, then as said before, technically there is no reason for me to be depressed because He has me in the palm of his hand and therefore nothing would be out there to harm me. Are you with me?

The other side of the equation is different though. The burn-out came with a LOT of tiredness. No surprise given that it came about by sweeping everything under the rug. Meanwhile, the rug had been used extensively, was torn and consequently all the garbage was exposed in one go. Yay!

Dealing with them proved to be too much to handle on my own, and not even the knowledge that God had my back was enough to keep me sane. So even though I believed in God, even though I knew He had everything in the palm of his hand, I was unable to process this in my muddied brain.

Now there are numerous people who say: you should pray. Yes, you should. But what if that’s not enough? What if your belief system is tarnished and no matter how much you pray it isn’t ‘enough’? What did I just say? Prayer is not enough? How DARE I?

But it was my reality. Prayer before came easy: I could talk to God about anything. In that state? Nope. Nothing. Nada. And that’s when I decided to seek help. If I was in a car crash, I’d go to the hospital too, right? I would get that cast or the pain medication necessary to heal. This in my case is no different – I was unable to get back on track without help. 

If you need help, seek it please. Don’t let other people dictate when you should or shouldn’t look for help. Let your own relationship with God dictate to you what you must do. Not everyone is built the same, and the moment we think that we have a blue print one size fits all, is when we can literally lose people. Just like it almost happened to me.

And that’s why I’m telling this story: I am grateful to still be alive, I am grateful for all the people who prayed me through and grateful again for life in general. That’s gratefulness part ii for y’a. You know what to do: any comments feel free to leave’m below! Stay blessed.

Gratefulness part I

Some of you might know, that one of my biggest problems is depression and attacks of the mind. As I said yesterday, I’m ripping off the band-aid, and will be speaking about some issues I’ve been dealing with in my own life. Who knows, it might help someone else 🙂

My disposition in life has always been, helping others. I love providing assistance and what has been my downfall was helping others at the expense of my own well being. Twenty years ago, I was a lot more energetic then now, and able to handle all the disappointments and hurts, and what not. And if I use the word handle , what I really mean is sweeping them under a rug and pretend they’re not there!

Now logically, if you keep doing that long enough, what happens? It will be a built up and if you don’t deal with said built up.. well then the logical explanation is kaboom! Crash!

So in hindsight, it’s no wonder that my first burn out occurred in 2007. It was classified as such and I thought to myself: how on earth is that possible? But, having the personality I have, the only way through it was to dust myself off, and go back it again. Hindsight and 3 burnouts later, I now know that this is definitely not the way to go. If we don’t deal with the root of the problem, the symptoms will continue to show up.

But how does having burn outs and severe depression tie into faith? That’s totally illogical, right? Because if you have faith, then you should never ever be depressed and let alone need psychologists, psychiatrists or gasp: medication.  right? 

Ah! This article is way too short to answer that question, so I’ll continue it tomorrow. But one thing that did and does help me is gratefulness. When you’re in a depressed state (at least, that’s how it is for me), all the joy and happiness is sapped out of you. And there is absolutely nothing to be grateful for. I repeat. Absolutely nothing. The last burn out I had was the worst because I was unable to even be grateful for my kids or for my own life.

And  yet, I’m still here thank goodness. And I believe it’s solely due to the people who prayed for me and the push I got to start looking at the small tiny little light at the end of the tunnel which was a light year away at that time. But that’s all it took; a little sparkle of gratitude which blossomed into the will to live.

What are you grateful for today? What does your heart repeatedly tell you, even though you don’t want to listen? Feel free to share in the comments, or if you wish to connect personally just drop me an email… and I’ll gladly assist. Gratefulness part i to be continued by part ii tomorrow. Stay blessed!

Faith

So I’m finally tearing the band-aid off. Let’s talk faith, shall we?

If you look at my Facebook profile, I don’t talk faith much. Actually, if you look at anything I’ve written, faith doesn’t get a front row seat in anything I put out there. Reason for this is that I believe that faith is quite a personal journey and for me these last 5 years have been of tremendous growth, learning and possibilities. So why now? Because I’ve been prompted – or shouted out by HG to speak up. And where else to speak up then here?

Five + years ago, I was making Erwin a sandwich. Now this is a confession to the world. I was an angry woman at that time, and making him sandwiches in the morning was quite a selfish thing. If for example i would make an omelette, I would shove my bread with enough egg, and give him what was left of said omelette. So on this particular morning, I was baking some sausages to go in the mentioned bread. When suddenly, I hear a voice telling me to now stuff Erwin’s bread with the sausages and make mine with what was left. Startled, I let the bread knife fall as I thought there really was someone with me in that tiny kitchen. 

Looking around, seeing no one, I thought to myself.. this is my imagination. Pft! Not that it happened again! The same small voice told me the same thing. So fine, I did what I was told because by that time I was thinking “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?”

This was the beginning for me of communication through the Holy Spirit. Now mind you, before getting to this point, I was introduced to God in a very unusual way, which I will talk about another time. The pastor of a church told me point blank: “Listen. Go and build yourself a relationship with Jesus and then come back if you have questions.” Me: “Uhm what? How on EARTH do you do that?”

But that’s what I did. Found this app called YouVersion, which has many plans which guide you through the bible. And music too, as I love music, this also became a way for me to dive into the world of God. And faith. 

Am I there? Nope. By far not. This is a journey and every time there’s a peak you think.. oh wauw! Look at where I came from! And then off you go to another peak. Is it easy? No. But that’s what Jesus says too: You will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.

So again, why am I sharing? The same voice which told me to stuff Erwin’s bread, told me since yesterday what I should be writing about today. And as obedience is better than sacrifice, here I am!

Tell us, what do you think about this topic? Leave your comments below!