I Found Strength Through My Pain

3 years ago, I was terminated from my job. First time ever but I knew it was coming. I was struggling hard with a diagnosis that I received from my doctor. She said that I had bipolar I disorder also known as bipolar depression. Again, I was struggling hard. Some of the decisions I would make were not so rational. First of all, apparently, I hid it well. I lied a lot then. I didn't want anyone (my family) to know what I was going through because I believed they wouldn't help me or believe me. I didn't know how to handle it. I knew that I got in some deep deep feelings every year around the same time and never really knew why. But I didn't realize that was the name they gave it. I also dealt with anxiety. Panic attacks were very frequent. I needed an inhaler just to calm myself down… It wasn't until recently until I realized that I didn't have to believe that this was an issue for me. Even if they have a name for it, I still don't have to claim these issues as mine! Wanna know why? Because God is MY FATHER. He does not and WILL NOT accept that. He calls me a Son of God. You too love!

So back to my story… For a few years, I was trying to figure out how to handle this diagnosis. For a long time, I felt like I couldn't tell my family. I felt like they were only going to throw in my face that, "I'm a child of God", "I'm healed" and some other cliché church sayings. It didn't mean a lot to me THEN. I felt like because they didn’t ask me what I needed in those moments, they were ignoring the issue at hand. Where I was in my mind, I felt that throwing scriptures at me or biblical sayings in my face was not the only answer. I felt like I needed more than just prayer or affirmations. It made me feel like they were just brushing me off. It's not like they brought up the issue again or asked how I was doing. So I felt I was left to deal with it alone or at least without my family's support. I knew I had God on my side. I started reading books, articles, and other blogs about people dealing with their depression and anxiety. I also gathered scriptures that I knew would help me come out of this dark place. Regardless of what the word says, these things that happened in my mind were real to me. BUT it was only because I allowed it to and I didn't realize what I was doing. I didn't know the truth, I didn't know the Word.

Now yes, I've gone to church all my life and I've sung all about God's goodness. But just those practices alone weren't doing me any favors because I didn't abide in the Word. I didn't study, I didn't take any interest to see what God said about me in His word. I knew all the clichés and I knew I was going to Heaven because I believe Jesus died for my sins and rose again. But what I didn't know or take heed to was that I could live free while I'm still here on earth. Living as a Son of God, on earth.

With the first step of healing, I believe you have to come to terms with the ways of yourself. Once you realize what you're doing and how they aren't working for you, you can begin to replace the negative behaviors with more positive ones to revamp your life. But first, you have to revamp your mind, your beliefs. Right before I told my family, I made up in my mind that I was going to get better. I took some time to evaluate myself and realize what I was doing to myself. I wanted to be better. I wanted to get better. I understood it was going to take work to get there. I had been denying what was going on in my mind and the actions that they drove me to. So once I told my family, it was real to me. I had actually told someone what I was going through. So now they knew where they should attack. I told them for support. I may have felt alone but I really wasn't.

The little practices that I did do, going to church every Sunday, singing about God and going to church, did give me some hope. I was able to reflect on the many things that God did for others, for me, and the scripture I did know. Just this year, I tried to read the whole bible from Genesis to Revelations. I didn't finish...yet. But as I was reading Genesis 1:26 ["Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth".], God revealed some things to me. Adam was created with power, authority, and prosperity… Adam was created to live; to worship! When Adam was in Eden, he had everything that He could ever need. There was no such thing as mental illness, sickness and disease, poverty, or stress. He operated in the power and authority that God gave him. Only when Adam fell, is when all of the negativity came. God told Adam, everything that came easy to him, he would now have to work for it. So this goes for me...us too!

I've learned that our beliefs ultimately dictate our behaviors. Whatever we believe, will come out in the way we talk and how we move throughout life. Adam ended up falling because he allowed his wife to convince him of something different. In chapter 2:25, Adam and Eve were content with who they were. "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." But just 6 verses later, Eve is persuaded to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent tricks her and is like, "But did he really say you were gonna die? Nah, you'll just know what's up. You'll be like a mini-god, knowing the good and bad." But how is it that we so quickly forget what God tells us before the tests come? I thank God for the Holy Spirit because He's there whispering in our ears, it's just if we chose to listen.

Ladies, sometimes we are led by our emotions and not our spirit. I know sometimes the circumstances in life will buck up against us to discourage and distract us! But the weapons of our warfare are NOT carnal! Meaning, whatever you see in the natural is not what it seems. It's just a ploy to get you off your game. So have hope and faith in His word that God will strengthen, heal & restore you. We have to remember whose we are. And our Father called us HEALED! Past tense. So let’s walk in that! It’s easy to feel defeated and hopeless. But it takes strength, to keep going. Ask God to give you that strength. Lean on Him. Believe that you are indeed healed, love.

The God who saves, heals, delivers, redeems, restores, provides, protects, strengthens, comforts, and loves… lives within us!