Freedom! – My Story Part 4

A TV show that intrigued me was the 90s surrealistic Northern Exposure. I believe it was the "Heal Thyself " episode when one of the characters, Ed, had a guest come to his home. The guest's name was Low Self-Esteem. Ed let the guest in his house and allowed LSE to constantly belittle him, in his own house. This episode fascinated me. Why would he let that creature come in his house and tell him that he was no-good, worthless, unacceptable or whatever? He allowed LSE to move in. Come on. Really? You don't let people come in your house and put you down and then feed them.

 Delight yourself in the LORD
 and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

God gave me the desire to change—to be free from depression. I knew something was wrong, but apparently I was okay living like that. It was like letting low self-esteem move in. Why put up with that? Someone had moved in my house and I was living with that thing for seven years. Wow! How crazy is that? I thank God that He stirred me toward change. It was time to give depression his eviction notice.

I went to morning prayer as usual on Tuesday July 29, 2003. I was determined that depression had to go. I recall running down the hall of the church as an outward act to remind myself of my determination. Then I went back into where everyone was praying. Someone began speaking a Word from God. When she finished I started laughing. What she said wasn't funny, but I started laughing. I don't know how to describe it. I guess it was like something broke and fell off of me. Depression had left the building! HALLELUJAH!

Of course I was excited! I was free! YEEEEHAAAAAA! I laughed for a while. I laughed a lot for days. And this became my freedom scripture.

¹ When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream.²Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”  ³The LORD has done great things for us,
And we are glad.  Psalm 126:1-3 NKJV

That was me: back from captivity; feeling like a dream; mouth full of laughter; tongue full of singing; saying the Lord has done great things for me and I am glad!

You know how it is when you've had a pain and then it's gone? You don't realize that it's gone at first; then you start doing a little mental inventory like you're poking that injured part of your body with your mind. And you realize the pain is gone. I didn't realize some of the things in me that had returned to normal, right away.

One day I was talking with an acquaintance on the phone. I was telling her what God had done in my life. I started talking about David in the Bible and how he told God thus and so and God responded thus and so. Then I told her something about Ezra. Nobody talks about Ezra; he was kind an obscure character in the scriptures. But I was talking about him. And I excitedly continued to talk about the Word. Finally she asked me, "Do you memorize scripture on purpose?" or something like that. I did a quick mental poke. I REMEMBER THE SCRIPTURES! God is awesome!

A word about depression:

I don't understand everything about depression, but I know that it may not always be characterized by sad feelings. In my case, it was constant tiredness; difficulty staying focused on a topic; and difficulty remembering simple things. I wouldn't dare try to diagnose someone. But if it seems like someone has "moved in your house." Please get help. I hope that you recognize that depression is opposite of what God wants for you. It's good to want what He wants and He wants His people to have joy. I pray that you will be desperate for change.

One morning at prayer, before my VJ (victory in Jesus) Day someone asked me what I wanted to do, work wise. I had shared at church how God had opened a door for me to present at a statewide conference. I had presented for this group before, but this was a special presentation. I had a four-hour workshop. And the other two presenters were PhDs or EdDs. And then there was Denise. When she asked what I wanted to do, I said confidently, "I want to work at NASA." It was the weirdest thing when I said it. It was like I felt it. Like someone put a stamp on it to seal it.

  

After VJ Day, I still had a desire to move. I felt okay about this now because I knew that I wasn't trying to move to runaway from a problem. The problem was solved. Well imagine this: the next week the NASA project that had told me they weren't hiring sent an email to tell me to submit an application. Well I was busy with other things, but I finally sent a résumé. So it's August now. Within the next couple of weeks, I had a phone interview; flew to Huntsville for an interview; and on September 25, 2003 I pointed my car south.

Alabama here I come!

When Will Joy Come? -- Day 30

It's already day 30 of our joy adventure. I still have at least two more parts to the "my story" mini-series. Thank you for allowing me to share with you. I hope the booklet and the blog have touched your life in a meaningful way. Have you noticed any difference? Maybe you're asking when will I see a difference? When will joy come?

Let's go back to some of the first scriptures we read. It is the parable of the sower and the seed. Go ahead and read the whole parable and Jesus' explanation.

³ “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”

¹⁴ The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”  
                                                                                                                            Mark 4:3-8, 14-20

The different types of soil represent the hearts of the people who heard the word. So that is the first place to start when you're looking for results. What is the condition of Footnotes:

1. Mark 4:12 Isaiah 6:9,10

your heart?

In this case, I am the sower. I scattered the joy booklets out to different types of people. Maybe you never picked it up again. Well, that seed won't produce fruit.

Maybe you were like, cool this was a nice little gift, but you don't believe. Again, no fruit.

You could be like the rocky place that the seed falls on. I have a feeling that many of us are dealing with those rocky places and the hard heartedness. I can't seem to get away from writing about it.

 ⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says:

   “Today, if you hear his voice,
 ⁸ do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
   during the time of testing in the desert,     Hebrews 3:7-8 NIV

This was reminding the people of when God first spoke these words to the people He had brought out of slavery in Egypt with Moses. God brought them out with miracles. After all that God had done for them, you know like parting the Red Sea so they could cross it on dry ground. But when they didn't have water they complained and asked why did God bring them there to die. He could help them escape from their enemy but He couldn't feed them? Ummm wrong!. God showed them what He could do and He took care of them. But their hearts were hard because they did not believe God who proved Himself over and over again. So the 12^th verse says,

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

As Jesus said, when trouble and persecution came they gave up. Again, no fruit for those who are not trusting God.

Maybe your heart is like the soil with the thorns. The thorns are the worries of this life and then some. Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing the word of God. If your heart is rocky or has thorns, faith can't really come. I've experienced this. I read the word, but no faith. I have gotten so worried and worked up that I don't allow the Word to penetrate my heart. In those cases I have to ask God to forgive me and help me. As I keep reading the Word, my heart changes. But worries make the Word unfruitful. If your heart is like this, continue to read the scriptures until all the other things in the world don't bother you so much. See Till Until -- Grab a Plow! Part 2

Finally, your heart may be the good ground. Your heart was prepared, you heard/read the Word and believed it and if you have not already, you will produce the crops. Oh happy day! But you notice some seeds yielded more crops than other. Why? How ready was your heart? Any kind of soil can be prepared for an abundant harvest.

I'm going for 100 times what I've sown and that's not even the limit.

The Four-Letter F Word – My Story Part 3

I never got passed volume one of my Nancy Drew set. For me, mystery has always been scary. I don't like scary. It frightened me to not know who my enemy was. You know how you always imagine the worst?

When I learned my enemy's name, I could figure out, with God's help of course, how to deal with it. I researched depression. " If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sun Tzu The Art of War. I'm going to read that book one day.

I was desperate for change. Of course I prayed, but you know what desperate times call for. I knew I needed to f_ _ _. That's how desperate I was. I really don't like to use the word, but sometimes you have to fast. Ugh! I made fresh juice and that was all that I swallowed for a few days. Spiritual fasting can be a weapon.

I also believed God had given my a strategy with three Ws.
      Work out – for my body. (Depression hates exercise.) That's all I'll say about that.
           Word – for my mind. Romans 12:2:  Do not be conformed to this world,
                            but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
               Worship – for my spirit. My connection to God.

I know I went to the gym at least two times, maybe three. I exercised. "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy."—Legally Blonde

I bought a pack of 50 index cards. I filled those cards with scriptures about joy and gladness and any word that was anti-depression. I read those cards daily (or mostly everyday.) Sometimes twice a day. I was too desperate to only read a promise a day.

For at least two minutes at a time, a couple of times a day I would tell myself:
  I'm not depressed.
  I have the joy of the Lord. (Nehemiah 8:10)
  I have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16)
  I'm a brilliant thinker. (because I used to be)
  I have a great memory. (because I used to have)

I would drive to my church for early morning prayer three days a week. My church was a 45-minute drive. Don't know why I can't go to a neighborhood church. I was desperate for change. I also had my girls praying for me. Everyone should have friends who pray.

Next I had to learn to focus on God and not on Denise. I praised God for His goodness. I listened to music that focused on Him. I listened to and sang happy music. I turned off the TV. I was desperate.

Let me preach a little right now: If you have a problem, get help. Do something about it. If you're drowning, don't try to figure out how to save yourself. I've done that and just stayed underwater way too long. Sometimes other people can see you're drowning and wonder how long you're going to stay down there. Please don't be too proud to ask for help. That hard heart may as well be a cement block around your neck. Don't postpone your life. Realize that God loves you and wants good things for your life. If you've been reading the joy scriptures, you should have recognized that. Stop lying to yourself.

Okay, as someone who has been there, I felt the need to say that. Moving on . . .

People had told me it was depression. These people were spiritually discerning. One prayed for me and said it was "depression in disguise." I didn't get it. Another prayed for me and I told her no, that's not me. One day, after I knew what I was dealing with, I heard someone say depression is a psychological disorder marked by an inability to concentrate. Oh, well why didn't they say that in the first place? I thought depression was being sad and mopey, which I was not. Hmmm, I guess that was the "disguise" part.

So I continued with my three Ws. At that time, there was a big Christian event coming to St. Louis. Area churches were meeting to pray. One Monday evening, my friend and I were there. We were near a lady from my church. She asked me when I was coming back to work with the children. I casually told her that I had some things I was working on. She said, "It doesn't take God 24 hours."

And my friend chimed in, "By this time tomorrow."

Those words are from a scripture in 2 Kings 7. It was during a time when there was a horrible famine because of the enemies surrounding the city. There was no apparent way out. The prophet of God told the king that there would be a complete turnaround "by this time tomorrow." And there was.

The Diagnosis -- My Story Part 2

We're almost finished reading Joy for 30 days. I am working on "God Is" for April. Let me know if you would like to receive this booklet. I will only give them to those who request one. Did I hear someone say, "Phew?" :-)

Now the LORD had said to Abram:
      “Get out of your country,
      From your family
      And from your father’s house,
      To a land that I will show you. Genesis 12:1 NKJV

You know how it is when you learn a new word and for the next week or so you hear people using it or you come across it in your reading? Well, it was sort of like that, but more so with the Genesis 12:1 verse. In about March or April 2003, I had a desire move. Now I don't like to rearrange my furniture, so the desire to move was very strange. Then I kept hearing that scripture. Isn't that scripture telling someone to move? What was going on? I didn't know where I wanted to go; I just knew I wanted to get out of Alton, Illinois.

The Symptons – My Story Part 1

I've put this off long enough, here we go:  It began several years ago. I'm not sure what happened but I noticed a change in my second to last semester of college. (I went to college after I was fully-grown, not right out of high school.) I don't recall now what I noticed, but I knew something was different and progressively getting worse. I made it through my classed and student teaching, but something was just different.

Now I've graduated. I am teaching eighth grade. I loved it. But something is not quite right and I can't put my finger on it. After a couple of years, I guess, one of the main things that I noticed initially was that I was forgetting things. I could begin a sentence and then . . . ummmm what was I going to say? I had to try to play it off and act like wasn't I was just changing the subject. Admittedly, I was probably not very interested in what I had to say. But this was ridiculous. It was one thing to search for a word, but quite another to lose a train of thought in conversation.

Because I didn't know what was going on with me, I stopped working with the preschoolers in children's church. I guess I was concerned that whatever I had might be spiritually contagious, if there is such a thing. I didn't want to be around the little ones when I felt so unsure of myself.

One thing that we would do at the beginning of children's church was to put on the "full armor of God." In Ephesians chapter 6, there is a list of six pieces of spiritual armor then it tells us to add prayer with it. I had developed the habit of naming the armor and saying all or parts of scriptures related to each piece of armor. I had taught it to the preschoolers and every Sunday, we would put on the armor of God together by saying those scriptures. Putting on the armor was a habit like getting dressed in morning. I'd step into the shower and name (the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, etc) with the scriptures. I had been doing it for years. Now I could not remember which part came next. I knew I could find a three year old who could tell me which piece came next. This was getting scary.

I was really fed up when I forgot someone's birthday. At that point, I went to speak with my pastor's wife, the co-pastor of our church. She is a spiritually discerning woman and she speaks with wisdom. She told me that she didn't believe what was going on with me was Alzheimer's or anything like that, but that it was related to my sleep. Yeah, I had noticed that my sleep patterns were off. Looking back on it, I realized that I had seasons of borderline insomnia. Ok, so I'll try to sleep better.

A few months later . . .

The next thing I noticed was that I would go to work and then come home and go to bed. I was just so sleepy all the time. I used to stay at work pretty late. Not anymore. Get up; go to work; come home; go to bed. Repeat. Now it was the end of the school year – the time of year when they have award banquets. I never missed a time to recognize students' achievements, if I could help it. I didn't go to the honors banquet. I went home and went to bed.

Finally, it was June and school was out. I had had enough of whatever was going on with me. At this point it had been seven years. Enough is enough already. I made a plan. I made a special place for myself to pray at home. A place for God and me to meet. On our first meeting in that place I told Him, "I'm not going anywhere until you show me what is wrong with me."

Catch Me! – Psalm 94:18-19

Several years ago, I had a bout with depression – I'll share more on this later. But I'll tell you this: I won! Anyway, I would read the scriptures. Psalm 94:18-19 was one to which I could relate. The psalmist said,

¹⁸ When I said, "My foot is slipping,"

your love, O LORD , supported me.

¹⁹ When anxiety was great within me,

Your consolation brought joy to my soul.

It's funny the way the first line is written. If your foot is slipping, you probably don't say, "My foot is slipping." You scream it. For me, I was saying screaming, "My mind is slipping. My life is slipping. Catch me."

The "catch me" is implied. I'm not telling You that my foot is slipping as if it is the daily weather forecast. I'm telling You because I need You to do something about it.

God knows. That's why I could say like the psalmist, His love kept me up.

I've got the Denise translation of verse 19: When I was trippin,' stressing, and worrying because I didn't know why my foot was slipping, Your comfort gave me a joy I couldn't explain and peace to keep going."

Even today when I read this scripture, probably EVERY time I read those verses, I feel a sigh of relief.

God's love supports. God's comfort brings joy. Aahhhhhhh

God's Exchange Policy -- Isaiah 61:1-3, 7

Last week I had an unpleasant experience of exchanging a product that did not work. I had to return it to a members-only store. Well, they don't exchange products; they give refunds on their "cash cards." I had bought the item with a coupon that had expired a few days after the purchase. So I was refunded the regular price. I explained that I had used a coupon and the cashier made the correction. Then I had to go to the other side of the store, find a new product, and check out again while explaining that the cash card was for a lesser amount because of the coupon, but I wanted that sale price again.

Here's the problem: In between the time of that purchase and my return, my membership card had expired. I did not want to renew my membership that day; I just wanted to exchange a faulty product. But they don't make exchanges so this was going to be a new purchase. I could not use the gift card without my membership card. (That's not what it says on the store website.) They brought a manager into the situation. We finally worked it out and I said thank you and was leaving. But before I left he made it quite clear that they don't usually do what he had done for me and they would NOT do it again.

If only he would have stopped before that last sentence. So basically he was doing me a favor by giving me a replacement that hopefully worked. I drew a deep breath and made my exit. I kept thinking about joy.

"I am not going to get upset. I am not going to let that man steal my joy. Oh, like he did me a favor. I'm not sure if I'm going to renew my membership there. He's got a lot of nerve. Calm down, Denise; it's no big deal. Relax."

God's exchange is such a contrast:

FOR OUR	GOD GIVES
Poverty	Good news (He has the solution)
Broken hearts	Healing
Captivity	Liberty
Spiritual incarceration	Open doors to freedom
Mourning	Comfort and consolation
Ashes of self-hate and humiliation	Beauty
Mourning	Oil of joy
Heaviness	Praise
Shame	Double honor
Confusion	Good inheritance and everlasting joy

As read in Isaiah 61:1-3, 7

¹ “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
      Because the LORD has anointed Me
      To preach good tidings to the poor;
      He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
      To proclaim liberty to the captives,
      And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

 ² To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
      And the day of vengeance of our God;
      To comfort all who mourn,
 ³ To console those who mourn in Zion,
      To give them beauty for ashes,
      The oil of joy for mourning,
      The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
      That they may be called trees of righteousness,
      The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

 ⁷  Instead of your shame you shall have double honor,
      And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion.
      Therefore in their land they shall possess double;
      Everlasting joy shall be theirs.

Through Jesus, God exchanges all of our faults and defects without the attitude. To become a member, all you have to do is trust Him with your life. It is well worth it. He paid the price. Amen!