I’m am tumbling over to this blogsite after a bad experience on a former blog of mine… The world has its share of “creeps” and it was my misfortune to meet up with one and I needed to get distance from his eyes and comments. So bear with me as I learn the ins and outs of tumblr. I find that I am also hesitant to open my soul again online… “Once bitten,…” and all that. It is saddening when something as marvelous as the www. becomes a dark and frightening thing rather than the blessing it should be. I am struggling with some fear in this regard…how much information to give and how honest to be… I will eventually sort it out; in one direction or another.
I will tell you a bit about myself, but obviously with some caution, I don’t want any searchable phrases to lead the predator to me again.
The most important thing about me is the God who created me, died for me, and is going to beat the pants off of the powers of darkness that are currently having their heyday in this world. He is what I am about… all else is relatively insignificant. In His inscruitable wisdom, God has chosen to allow me to suffer some great challenges in my life: poor health, chronic severe pain, and mental illness. I’ve struggled with the last item for almost 30 years now and it was only in the past two or three years that I got a definitive and correct diagnosis…which I am hesitant to share, because of the “searchability” of that phrase. I will suffice it to say that it is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
My physical health combined with the psychiatric illness have worked together to limit my activities greatly… I am not quite homebound, but close. I can no longer drive or work, so am currently working on the concept of finding my identity apart from work or accomplishments or socially defined terms. God doesn’t do things without purpose, love and wisdom; so it is up to me to trust that and to discover exactly what it is He wants me to do and to be right now. I don’t mean to be blithe about that and casually state that as though it was an easy or natural thing to happily accept such pain and hardship with a graceful “Thank You.” I struggle with it sometimes… Sometimes I whine and complain and sometimes I rage…
But the bottom line; the bedrock of my life; is the certain knowledge that God is infinitely wise, infinitely loving and that THIS WORLD IS NOT ALL THERE IS OR IS GOING TO BE. It is that fact - the fact that I am on a journey to a reality where pain, sickness and limitations will be non-existent - which keeps me committed to life rather than trying to end it, as I’ve done in past times. What WILL remain is my character, the WHO of me and the WHAT that I have become as a result of the challenges in my life.
So these are the main parameters of my life…other than the fact that I am (was) a painter, musician and writer…as well as a voracious and omnivorous reader…I still dabble in all of the above pursuits, when my body and mind will permit, but I do not any longer define myself by those activities as I once did because I have learned to hold loosely to things that are not intergral to my being, because they are not permanent nor dependable.
So join me on this journey of notation…in words and images…as I delve into my thoughts and the wisdom that God shares with me about Life, Meaning, and Struggle and share them with you.
