Walking In Sunlight

It feels so good to actually be smiling while I am writing.  When I sit down to work on my book or add articles to my blog it is important that I am feeling inspired.  Today, I am so inspired that I am not sure my fingers can keep up with my thoughts.  The people in my inner circle know that for the last several months I have truly struggled with my depression.  As always, God has delivered me from a long manic episode.  I didn’t realize just how much I was affecting everyone around me until this week.  When I finally started feeling better and was able to look ahead to my bright future, my closest friends and loved ones were letting me know one by one just how worried they were.  When a person suffers from depression he spends a lot of time feeling sorry for himself; and though it is a horrible disease, he may forget how much his loved ones are affected.  This entry is my apology and hopefully encouragement to others to take whatever steps are needed to get better.

Depression is a dark place.  The adjective “dark” is very important in this description because when I am in one of my rapid cycling phases, I actually crave darkness.  Last night I was driving home from work and the rain was beating violently against my windshield.  It was one of those really cold hard rains where even on high setting, your windshield wipers can’t seem to do enough.  When I am at my lowest points, I look forward to darkness and storms.  Over the last few months, I have obsessed about rainy, dark and dreary weather.  I check the forecast on my iPad every day just to make sure the weather looks bad.  In those low moods, I hate sunshine.  It’s a selfish feeling, but I don’t want everyone else to be happy.  Dark rainy days put a damper on everyone’s life.  To me, it is easy to hide out on those days.  It’s easy to justify coming home from work and crawling under the covers with no attempt at social interaction.  It’s very dangerous behavior, but I have lived with this mentality on and off for many years.  In my mind, I can hide from the world in the dark.  I can hide from my problems. 

I know that I have made a turn for the better because last night’s dark and rainy weather took me by surprise.  I was not expecting it.  I had not planned for it.  I had not wished it upon Northeast Alabama.  It actually got on my nerves.  Earlier in the day the sun was shining very bright and I walked outside, looked up at blue skies and smiled.  That is a great feeling.  Humans are supposed to crave sunlight.  It is supposed to make us feel better.  The vitamin D is not only good for our skin, but our mentality. 

How did I get so low for the last few months?  How did I pull out of it?  These are the important questions you need answered to understand depression.  People who suffer from a form of depression have a chemical imbalance and don’t have the ability to bounce back from a tragedy, illness, heartbreak, or in some cases, mild disappointment.  Since I have battled depression for most of my life, I have learned how my mind works.  It doesn’t take much for me to trend toward sadness.  If a tragedy or a disappointment occurs in my life it compounds the problem.  In October, I lost my dear friend Jean Chappell.  Jean was a great confidant for me.  She actually saved my life.  She and her late husband C.E. intervened when I was in one of the worst manic episodes of my life.  She had experienced depression for years as a breast cancer survivor and recognized my signs.  Without her help, I wouldn’t be here today, I would not be a writer, and I would not be a productive Christian.  Losing Jean was like saying goodbye to my safety net.  The next few months spiraled out of control.  All areas of my life were affected.

The road to recovery from this episode also began because of Jean.  She taught me never to keep secrets about my depression from the people I love.  She always encouraged me to talk about it and put my feet to it!  Reach out to as many people as I could.  I did just that.  I reached out to my loved ones including my church family.  I have no idea how any person survives a life crisis without God and His children.  I prayed very long prayers, wrote five and six page pleas in my journals to God, and frequently communicated with my brothers and sisters in Him.  I think I lost count of how many people were actually praying for things to turn around for me.  It takes time and it may not work out the way we think or even the way we direct God.  Prayers are answered when we truly submit to His will.  I had to learn this the hard way, but I am living proof.  Leave the what, where, when, why and how to Him.

The scriptures tell us that God will never place more on us than we can handle.  I was at a point where I was telling God in every single prayer, I can’t handle any more. “ Please realize I have reached my limit” was my plea.  He never left my side.  The spirit continued to dwell in me and keep me going.  God worked through the people in my life to bring about the change I needed to start my recovery. 

Christians are powerful people.  We are the strongest on earth.  God can handle everything.  No obstacle is too big and He uses His children as the resource for fighting evil.  We have to hit our knees, make our requests known to God and then stand up and walk toward the sunlight that we need.  I understand being so depressed that you don’t even feel like praying.  When you hit that point, if you trust in Him, you are close to a breakthrough, I promise you.  I realize that God has allowed me to learn these lessons so that I can help others.  We learn compassion for other people through our own experiences.  Trials and tribulations shouldn’t be viewed as a test of faith, but training to handle larger obstacles in the future. 

The most important advice I can give anyone is that you can’t do this alone.  You need to place God as the first and foremost contact.  Secondly, surround yourself with other Christian friends and loved ones who have compassion for your plight.  Finally, seek the medical help or counseling you need to get on the road to recovery.  It may sound like a simple plan, it isn’t.  It’s very hard, but you need to know that you can do it. 

In the early days I used to deal with great shame about my depression.  I have had very close friends and family tell me that I was ruining my reputation.  I have recently even gotten private email requests to stop airing my dirty laundry and the details of my life.  This attitude is simple and closed minded.  God expects all of us to use the talents and experiences of our life to help others.  Imagine if I or you did not reach out and talk about our problems how many people might suffer in silence and even succumb to this disease.  I speak openly to serve my God, assign accountability to myself, and hopefully help someone else who is hurting. 

Will another manic episode creep up in my future?  Regardless of what I face in my future, I am better prepared to cope.  I realize how much better it is to look for the sunlight in the forecast rather than the rain.

“Walking in sunlight all of my journey,

Over the mountains, through the deep vale;

Jesus has said, I’ll never forsake thee—

Promise divine that never can fail. Refrain:

Heavenly sunlight! Heavenly sunlight!

Flooding my soul with glory divine;

Hallelujah! I am rejoicing,

Singing His praises, Jesus is mine!”

-lyrics by Henry J. Zelley pub. 1899

 

Love to you all.

Unanswered Prayers

Christians are taught to take everything to God in prayer.  When we or a loved one face an illness, we get on our knees and we go to God in prayer.  When we are enduring relationship issues, we bow our heads and take advantage of the avenue of communication through Jesus.  When our career hits a brick wall, we retreat into our private place, confident in the scripture, “ask and ye shall receive.”  When we make our requests known to God we sometimes include a list of instructions.  God doesn’t need our direction.  He holds the master plan for our lives, it’s called His Will.  I have recently discovered this to be one of my greatest flaws.  Prayer with specifications means prayer with limitations. 

 

It is okay to let God know our dreams and to even ask Him for exactly what we want, but I sometimes make the mistake of holding Him to my timeline and my precise plan.  Putting all your eggs in one basket or getting your hopes up to expect every wish granted is impractical.  God’s plan is greater than our own.  God’s wisdom is far beyond our comprehension.

 

Garth Brooks sang a song in the early 1990’s called, “Unanswered Prayers.”  Some of the lyrics are listed below:

 

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.  Remember when you’re talking to the man upstairs.  Just because He may not answer, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care.  Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

 

In the song, Garth tells the story of a young love not working out the way he wanted.  He later marries the love of his life and at a high school reunion runs into the old flame.  It doesn’t take long to realize that God never intended for him to be with this woman.  The right choice was made for his life.  It took him a while to realize, but God had something better planned for him.

 

When our hearts break because a dream doesn’t come to pass, a loved one doesn’t survive an illness, or a relationship doesn’t stand the test of time, we must realize there is a purpose.  My Granny used to always say, “we will understand in the by and by.”  As I get older, I realize that I have had so many questions I wanted answered that I have already forgotten most of them.  God heals our wounds.  We won’t stay lonely, downtrodden, or disheartened for long.  If we continue to look to Him and truly focus on the words, Thy Will Be Done, the end result will be greater than anything we wished for.

 

I recently complained to a dear friend that my past sins were holding me back from achieving the blessings I asked for in my future.  She disagreed with me and pointed me to David’s pleas with God in Psalms.  David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband slain in war.  He paid with the death of his young son.  This was a consequence of his sin.  He truly repented and God restored him and gave him a king for a son in Solomon.  Look at the sins committed by Saul.  He murdered believers in cold blood.  Later he was truly sorry for his sins and was transformed into Paul, one of the greatest Apostles.  God doesn’t hold us back and He doesn’t allow our sin to hold us back.  It is our mind that renders this negative sentence.  The same mind that gave God directions on how I wanted my life to go is the same mind that allows my previous sins to impede my future happiness.  I am weak and God is powerful.

 

Over the course of the last few days I have learned that God has much greater plans for me.  While I have been frightfully creating havoc and turmoil in my own heart and my close friends, He has been at ease lining up my blessings.  You see, we have to convey to God what it is we need, “Lord, I need a healthy family or Lord, will you please bless me financially.”  We just don’t need to say, “Father, on February 12, 2013 I need you to deposit $2000 in my checking account.”  It is not going to happen.  We communicate to the Lord through Jesus Christ what we need and we let Him work out the what, where, when, how and why.  This is the true meaning of faith.

 

That dream you have been holding onto and holding God accountable for may not fit into the puzzle of your life in God’s eyes.  What we have to realize is that His plan is greater.  It has more abundance, happiness, and influence than anything our minds could imagine.  We need to learn to ask for our daily bread more often and trust in the promise that God will exceed our imagination.

 

People say that we go through hard times to come out stronger.  I have learned to appreciate unanswered prayers in the last few days and that is my growth as a Christian.  I am stronger.  I am more prepared to help others.  The journey through the storm may have been quite painful, but the beauty of the rainbow on the other side has exceeded my imagination.

 

Love to you all.

Wrong Turn!

We all like our freedom.  We are a little bit spoiled as Americans because we have so much of it that we don’t always know what to do…or even the right thing to do.  As Christians, God has given us free will as well.  His Word outlines the pattern for how we should live our lives, but the choice is up to us as individuals.  Even though God forgives our sins as often as we ask Him to, the circumstances we find ourselves in can have a very negative impact on our lives.

Imagine yourself driving down the road of life.  Things are going just great.  This is how we live when we first become a Christian.  Life is brand new.  We are cleansed of our past mistakes and sins.  The devil doesn’t like that and he will come after us.  Along that highway, we will find lots of temptation placed there by Satan.  We use our free will to make wrong turns and suddenly we find ourselves traveling down a side road.  It’s not the path that God intends for us.  We realize that we have made a mistake and we ask His forgiveness.  As our Heavenly Father, God always forgives, but the circumstances are, we are on this wrong road and it may take a while before a median appears for us to turn around. 

God realizes that His children get off the beating path from time to time.  He forgives our sins, but not our circumstances.  You have probably heard it said that God will answer your prayers in His own time.  Have you ever thought about the decision we make with our free will may just make it harder for God to create a way out for us?  We have to give Him time to look at where we are headed and say, “okay, I see now, I can create a place for this one to turn around right up here.”  Sometimes because of temptation and free will, we don’t always see God’s sign to turn around.  We tend to just make things worse.

When a person obeys the Gospel and makes the life decision to live for the Lord, it angers the devil.  He is a powerful force of evil in the world and at times we all fall victim to his ways.  Fortunately when we pray to God, the devil is weak, he has no power over us.  We can tell Satan to get behind us and stay out of our way.  When we speak God’s Word, the devil is crippled. 

There’s an old vacation Bible school song we used to sing that goes something like this, “roll the Gospel chariot along, roll the Gospel chariot along, if the devil’s in the way, we will roll right over him, we will roll right over him and we won’t tag along behind.”  We need to apply this to our daily lives.  When we are traveling down life’s highway and the devil is standing there holding up his little “will work for your demise” sign, we need to remember the VBS song and roll right over him…and not tag along behind!

I have been on that wrong road too many times to even count.  I have learned my lessons and I am sure you have as well.  Jesus is the hope and the truth that always guides me back to the highway leading to Heaven.

Bertie Biscuits

This article is co-written by my cousin, Robin Reaves Cochran

Bertie Biscuits

If you are raised in the south where family gatherings and grandparents are some of your most special memories then I am sure you can relate to the nostalgic stories I share about my grandmother Bertie Mae Cochran.  I hear people say all the time that their mother or grandmother makes the best this or that.  They fill in the blanks with things like chicken-n-dumplings, dressing, chocolate pie, etc.  We all have great memories of things that stand out in our childhood or early years. 

I was at my cousin’s wedding recently and I was listening to several people talk about things they remember from days gone by.  Recipe’s that their parents or grandparents would whip up.  They were simple and it was before the fast food craze and before we all converted to eating out every meal.

In our family having a meal with Granny (Bertie Mae) was more than just about the food that she prepared.  The meal was always nourishing and delicious, but it was also food for the soul.  A visit with Granny warmed your heart.  It always put things in perspective.  Granny loved to share stories of her life and most of the time she found great humor in the things that might be considered trials or tribulation.  She was a pillar of strength for our family.  She set the bar for our faith and obedience to God.  She took on the role of spiritual leader in our family and we all loved and respected her for it.

My cousin Robin remembers getting those cherished invites for supper.  She married into our family at 16 years old and immediately became one of Granny’s girls.  Robin, her husband Carl and daughter Jennifer would visit Granny for supper.  Among the various dishes Granny would cook, she always had a habit of serving canned biscuits.  Granny enjoyed cooking and she certainly was good at it, but she was not fond of cooking homemade biscuits.  She put her effort into her stews, vegetables, dumplings, etc., but was not a fan of rolling a lot of dough.  She always used the small canned biscuits in the red or blue packages.  I am guessing the biscuits were just an afterthought, but while they might not taste as good as Aunt IIadene’s made from scratch batch, when it was at Granny’s house, they were perfect.

When a person projects so much love in everything they do, we just soak it up every chance we get.  We love being with them.  We are in awe of their wisdom.  “Bertie Biscuits” as Robin and her family affectionately call the Superbrand canned biscuits always trigger memories of those late afternoon meals with Granny.  We would have gladly eaten anything to just be in her presence.

My mother Ona is well known for her chicken-n-dumplings.  She makes them for the whole family and whenever we have a gathering they are gone in a flash.  Bertie Mae taught her middle daughter how to make the dish and guess what she uses for the dumpling….canned biscuits…Bertie Biscuits.  Granny always said, “no sense wasting time on the dough.”  Granny could find a good use for even the simplest of things in life.  She had a way of taking every situation and making it into a positive. This is a great approach to life and one that was always backed up with her famous phrase, “The Lord is gonna take care of me.”

Robin says she has always struggled to get her dough to cook just right when she makes dumplings and then she learned the secret about using “Bertie Biscuits.”  Granny used those same canned biscuits to make her blackberry pies.  No sense wasting time on the dough.  The blackberries are the most important ingredient in the recipe.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  Ten years after our Granny’s death her lessons are still teaching us what is important in life.

When you find yourself missing a loved one or grieving because you are lonely, think about the sweet memories they created.  You can still find them in the smallest details of your life.  God has a way of comforting us with His sweet and tender gift of memory.  Bertie Mae was the greatest woman our family ever knew and as long as we remember her, the legacy lives on.

Love to you all! 

Sunday On The Square

 

I love being a writer.  Inspiration can hit you at the most unlikely of times.  Today I am driving on a sunny Sunday afternoon, contemplating my problems, praying for an answer.  I circle the square in Jacksonville shortly after having lunch with my mother.  The grass looks very green and inviting.  The benches perched among the naked trees are empty and there is plenty of parking.  I whirl into a spot, pull out my lap top and find my space in the warm sunshine.  It’s windy and cool….but I am writing.

Without a shadow of a doubt we have to believe our Father is a forgiving God.  His supernatural power is greater than any negative circumstance we can make with our own free will.  I have certainly made many mistakes and created stressful situations that might wreck the nerves of even the most faithful.  Fortunately for me, even if I am the least in the kingdom of Heaven, that is all I need to be rescued by God.  You see, Jesus saves!  Jesus doesn’t just save those who accidentally go down the wrong road and turn around immediately.  He saves those of us who time and time again ignore the GPS of our conscience and deliberately make repeated wrong turns.  He has taught us to follow his example with one another and to love without condition and to forgive without limitation.  A Christian should wake up every day feeling like the luckiest person on earth….because we are.

Like most of you, I do have a hard time grasping the concept of eternity.  We are human and we are flawed.  We tend to live in the now and desire our rewards on earth.  Regardless of the promise of salvation and eternity of life in mansions on streets of gold, we crave the best cars, houses, vacations and other material things right now.  We use the free will God has given us to chase these goals and objectives in our lives.  I think it would be safe to say that unless we are truly content with our lives, we will always be chasing something.  The grass will always appear to be greener on the other side.

It would be easy for me to blame my situations, state of mind, and flaws on my mental illness.  When I think about it, there are times I do have to work harder to muster strength and courage.  I mean, harder than I used to.  Still, as a believer, I know deep down that God is preparing me for something great and the burden of emotion I feel is only to better equip me to make the difference my life is supposed to make.  If something in life comes to you easily, it’s probably not meant to teach you a lesson.  The hardest lessons in life yield the greatest perspective. 

The definition of faith is simple, the belief in the unseen.  The practice of faith, however, is much more strenuous than the definition.  It takes a lot more discipline and dedication.  You know that your faith is nearing the right place when you realize that your life does have meaning and that God has a plan.  Good faith translates into trust in His plan, not our own.  I have found over the last few months as I struggle with my depression that my faith rests completely on God and that most of my problem is that I don’t have any faith in myself.  I lack the faith that I will actually do the right thing.  I am doubtful because of my past behavior that I will make the best decision and recognize the road signs to make the turn God has planned for me.  Perhaps one of the sub-plots God is trying to teach me is to forgive myself for historical errors and trust that I do play a role in future success.  Overcoming the very thing that holds me back just may begin with letting go of a crutch.  Empowering ourselves could very well mean replacing excuses with action.

I was looking in the mirror just this morning at how my features have changed.  My face is drooping.  I honestly don’t remember the last time I really smiled and held it for a long time.  I am sure there is a study somewhere about the wrinkles and frown lines on a persons’ face as a result of limited laughter or smiling.  This is an action that I must take.  I must create opportunity to smile and feel joy.  God must be thinking, “Rob, you pray for happiness and joy, but why should I give it to you, I am not sure you can handle it, I don’t even know if you can smile.”  The preparation to receive a blessing from God is in my  hands.  I have to let go of the mentality, “when I feel better,” or “if God blesses me, then I will….”

I have always been the first person to use the phrase, “easier said than done.”  In this case, easier typed than done!  This is how perspective works though.  Once the indwelling spirit convinces us where we have been wrong, we have to take action to apply it to our lives.  Most of the people who know me know that when I write about something it is meant to assign accountability to myself.  It is my way of looking in the mirror and saying “take your own advice.”

I read a wonderful devotional last week that outlined how to keep a positive attitude when you are going through negative circumstances.  One of the tips was that a person should not spend a lot of time talking about how they feel when they are depressed or just down on their luck.  The columnist advised that you talk about how you want to feel.  Focus on the things in life you want to achieve.  One of my closest friends and sisters in Christ is convinced that I was meant to make a difference in other people’s lives.  She thinks I am supposed to use my long battle with depression to help others become stronger.  She quotes many scriptures for motivation and believes that one of my best attributes is compassion.  If I had not struggled as much as I have, would I understand the ins and outs of mental illness the way I do?  Would I be as open and honest?  Would I be as compassionate to others?  I choose to believe her analogy, so what I want to feel is fulfillment.  I want to be happy knowing that I took a negative circumstance and turned it into a positive influence.  I want to feel gratitude and not self-pity.  I want to embrace the journey that God has planned for me instead of wasting time on the sidelines. 

For over four years now I have been journaling every single day.  I record my prayers to the Lord and I go back and read them over and over and it helps me to realize just how He loves me and guides me.  God answers prayers in His own time.  For those of us, who struggle with that need to have our piece of the pie (or cake) right now, it’s important to realize we must submit to his timing.  The Lord’s plan is more awesome than our imaginative free will.  I have started including in my requests to God that He will exceed even my big imagination.  I have faith that He will, so I must practice patience.

The best advice I can give is that we can’t accomplish anything worth having without the Lord.  Success without His stamp of approval is only temporary.  Words like temporary and eternal seem harmless until you truly meditate on what they mean.  Material belongings or worldly success can be a blessing if given by God.  Our focus should be on the eternal relationship with Him.  The rest is just the icing on the top of that cake.

I mentioned earlier the struggles of the last few months.  I almost gave in, but because of the sacrifice Jesus made, I am a child of God.  His arms are safely wrapped around me.  I am not done until He tells me that I am.  I am happy to feel hope, because He is working on my behalf.  My wonderful friends and loved ones constantly pray for me, send cards, make calls, invite me over for dinner, etc., because that’s what we do for each other when we serve God.  I don’t see how any person survives in this world without a support system and without faith in God.  Those who suffer from depression and other illnesses, especially need God daily.  If you are reading this and find yourself struggling, you must take action.  You must put away the excuses and take the first necessary step to recovery.  In the Lord’s kingdom, when you reach out your hand, someone will be there to take it.

Love to you all.