Recovery Day of Prayer

Guidepost Magazine has chosen to focus today’s communication with God in lifting up prayers for those who struggle with addictions and manage their recovery.  The Addiction and Recovery Day of Prayer event utilizes Psalm 147:3 as its scriptural context.

            As I studied this Word, I was delighted to hear my spirit singing praises unto God for His goodness.  The psalmist wrote this kind of praise is beautiful and fitting.  And, since I am a person in recovery, praising God is very fitting and appropriate for deliverance from the bondage of addiction.  In fact, even in maintaining my deliverance by strategically remaining in the recovery process is worth praising God too! 

            It is excellent and appropriate to praise God when those who have been afflicted (broken hearted) are healed.  The inner heart does experience brokenness that is so deep and hurtful that some people turn to self-destructive addictions to cope with the pain, the trauma and their reality.  Oh, how deep pain can run.

            So we pray that the God who rebuilds, gathers and heals will restore and recover those who are broken.  We humbly ask God to heal the wounds of the afflicted by placing bandages and salve on their private, damage innermost places. 

Oh, God, only you know their unique pain.  You hear the specific sounds and words trapped in the tears and angry words of each star you have created. 

Please, as we lift up each star by name today, heal their secret and public wounds.  Help them gather together the disconnected pieces of their soul.  Guide them into safe places where they will find strong systems of support for their recovery.

            You, you alone have the unlimited strength to perform such great and marvelous acts.  In fact, your greatness is so incomprehensible to us that when we get to see fallen stars on their feet again, we are utterly amazed.

            Nevertheless, we will sing praises before, during and after we watch you miraculously deliver our loved ones from addiction.  We know we can depend on your supernatural strength to reclaim those that are lost and make firm their footsteps.

            In Jesus’ name we pray…Amen!

Spirituality Helps Achieve Balanced Mental Health

“It is not that ‘spirituality can cure depression, but [that it] may provide a

grounding in the midst of despair…”

~ Rev. John Parker Maxwell, Baltimore’s First Unitarian Church

            One of my personal, working definitions of spirituality is “engaging my faith in God to help me remain hopeful about the future.”  Another one is, “using my relationship with God to cope with daily life experiences.”

 

Man by Gustavo Rezende

            Seeking God’s presence, guidance and blessing while living out daily experiences is how I can cope with whatever the day brings. (Psalm 42)

            My reality is depression and anxiety are normal, habitual responses to life events.  Denying the existence of these conditions leads me back to self-destructive responses.  So, when life seems too much to bear, I tap into my relationship with God as an additional support to manage my mental health.

            Now, many people believe that faith or spirituality alone is all a person needs to achieve a balanced, mental state.  I tried it that way.  It doesn’t work for me.

            For me, I need to exercise my faith.  This means challenging my fears, forget what society stays about mental illness and step outside my comfort zone to take care of me.  For this reason, therapy, medication and attendance at 12-step meetings are the additional tools and resources necessary for my continuous, uninterrupted recovery from my co-occurring disorders.  I use those tools in conjunction with prayer, medication and reading the Word of God.

            If the church, as Jayson Bradley states in his blog post, Sinners Anonymous: Less Church, More Recovery, could successfully minister to ALL people struggling with mental illness and addictions, then “outsiders would come to us for sanctuary from themselves.”

            I’m a member of the clergy and learned, a long time ago, not to share my personal pain and emotional struggles with many people in the church.  The church’s hands-off approach towards mental illness feeds the stigma and pushes those of us who seek to reconcile our weakness with our faith -- outside the doors of the church.  Is this really what Christ intended?

            I think not.

            So, many days, I practice my spirituality in private by listening to sermons on YouTube, reading the Word of God and speaking with my therapist, in detail, about myself, my thinking, my behavior, weaknesses and struggles in light of my perceptions of God and how the Word impacts my thinking and behavior.  So far, so good.  I’m healing one day at a time.

 

Triad by Katrina Joyner

            The results of my faith grounding me looks like my mind is more settled.  I have called a moratorium on self-harm and I have taken several steps away from self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.  I’m not cured yet, but, I am on the path of recovery from co-occurring disorders. 

Yes, “they” also forgot to tell us depression and anxiety can be cured with an 80% success rate! 

So, this post is a word of encouragement to those of us that are not “normal” and need to creatively sustain our productive, healthy existence on earth.  Remember, We Do Recover! Therefore, creatively use your faith to ground you in your recovery and sustain you in managing life.

Be Blessed,

Mystic Michelle

A Father’s Sacrifice

Terry Jr and III

Three Ways Godly Fathers Demonstrate Love

            Secretly, I’ve always been fascinated by the lack of selfishness real men possess.  They take their responsibility of protector and provider seriously and without complaint.  Selflessly they sacrifice their personal desires for what is best for their family, children and other loved ones.  It is a sacrifice I consider courageous and admirable.

            The biblical character Job sacrificed on behalf of his children.  (Job 1:4-5) Now, the use of the word sacrifice in this context is a bit different.  Job went to God on behalf of his children.  After his sons and daughters would party, Job would give God a gift and ask God to forgive his children, in case they had offended God.  Admirable.

            His actions, in my opinion, align with attitude of present-day fathers who sacrifice their will, emotions, time and treasure for their children.  These fathers give themselves as a gift to their children.

Three Sacrifices of a Great Father

1.     Time.  After working all day and thinking about the family and praying to God for direction in his role as a man in his children’s lives, one way a great father sacrifices is by spending time with his children.  These small people can be demanding, energetic and a challenge to manage.  However, they also bring joy, peace and hope into the lives of men too.  Great fathers sacrifice their time by interacting with their children.  In fact, this sacrifice helps a man to maintain a sense of peace and proper focus on what is important in life.

2.     Emotions.  Men have feelings.  They have an emotional response to life.  Parenting children comes with feelings of love, warmth, joy, frustration, confusion, worry, etc.  Great fathers push their feelings to the side and pursue a course of action that will benefit their children.  They sacrifice how they feel in order to do God’s will in their child’s life.  Many times, this can’t be easy.  No one wants to watch their child cry because they had to correct their unruly behavior or enforce a rule.  But great fathers do it anyway, in moderation, to help the child function well in life.

3.     Will.  Great fathers do what has to be done.  They earn the money, share the money, take the family on trips, clothe the children, and provide food on the table and much more.  They handle their responsibilities.  Instead of pursuing the purchase of a new motorcycle or tickets to a Super Bowl game, they make sure their children’s needs are met before they pursue their own personal agendas.  They sacrifice their will.  They give themselves as a gift to their children, as often as possible, because it is right, responsible and honorable.  It is part of God’s plan for the family.

Michael, Sr and Jr.

Responsible parenting isn’t always easy.  It is an investment of ourselves into the lives of people we brought into the world.  There are many men who are fully invested in their role as a parent and we can tell because their behavior demonstrates good parenting.  They don’t just talk about it, they do it.

            Honor the father figures in your life today.  Enjoy their presence and salute the emotional, financial, spiritual and physical sacrifices they have made on your behalf.

Spirituality Helps Achieve A Balanced Mental Health

“It is not that ‘spirituality can cure depression, but [that it] may provide a

grounding in the midst of despair…”

~ Rev. John Parker Maxwell, Baltimore’s First Unitarian Church

                One of my personal, working definitions of spirituality is “engaging my faith in God to help me remain hopeful about the future.”  Another one is, “using my relationship with God to cope with daily life experiences.”

                Depression and anxiety are my normal, habitual responses to life events.  Denying the existence of these conditions leads me back to self-destructive responses when life seems too much to bear.  Therefore, I tap into my relationship with God as an additional support to manage my mental health.

                Now, many people believe that faith or spirituality alone is all a person needs to achieve a balanced, mental state.  I tried it that way.  It doesn’t work for me. 

                For me, I need to exercise my faith and step outside my comfort zone, and society’s expectations, to take care of me.  For this reason, therapy, medication and attendance at 12-step meetings are the additional tools and resources necessary for my continuous, uninterrupted recovery from my co-occurring disorders.  I use those tools in conjunction with prayer, medication and reading the Word of God.

                If the church, as Jayson Bradley states in his blog post, Sinners Anonymous: Less Church, More Recovery, could successfully minister to ALL people struggling with mental illness and addictions, then “outsiders would come to us for sanctuary from themselves.”

                I’m a member of the clergy and learned, a long time ago, not to share my personal pain and emotional struggles with many people in the church.  The church’s hands-off approach towards mental illness feeds the stigma and pushes those of us who seek to reconcile our weakness with our faith -- outside the doors of the church.  Is this really what Christ intended?

                I think not.

                So, many days, I practice my spirituality in private by listening to sermons on YouTube, reading the Word of God and speaking with my therapist, in detail, about myself, my thinking, my behavior, weaknesses and struggles in light of my perceptions of God and how the Word impacts my thinking and behavior.  So far, so good.  I’m healing one day at a time.

                The results of my faith grounding me looks like my mind is more settled, I am causing harm to myself less often and I have taken several steps away from self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.  I’m not cured yet, but, I am on the path of recovery from co-occurring disorders. 

Yes, “they” also forgot to tell us depression and anxiety can be cured with an 80% success rate! 

So, this post is a word of encouragement to those of us that are not “normal” and need to creatively sustain our productive, healthy existence on earth.  Remember, We Do Recover! Therefore, creatively use your faith to ground you in your recovery and sustain you in managing life.

Be Blessed,

M

A New Era of Existence
It’s Okay to Take Care of Me

… anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! (2 Cor. 5:17 MSG)

An initial understanding of being new in Christ prompted me to believe that I could be perfect right away.  No doubt, this misinterpretation was my own, but certainly fueled by a variety of Christian messages and teachings.

However, in a quest for perfectionism, I began harming myself psychologically by trying to achieve unrealistic, self-imposed expectations.  There wasn’t any room in my thinking for me to be human.

My truth is that living a new way of life happened because I began to understand what didn’t work.  And, since the old ways of coping with life and interacting with people didn’t work, it was up to me to change.  I had to learn how to rely on God to lead me into a new type of awareness.

Now, there are certainly people who believe we don’t need “outside” help to become better people.  However, that is not my truth.  I need, and welcome, the insight of therapists, sociologists, books, music and a variety of other resources to become the best person possible.

In my search for living life in ways that affirm my existence and feed my soul, I discovered some important truths:

1.   It is okay to self-affirm.  Gone is the need to blindly harm the self and its delicate soul.  It is time to nurture, embrace and discover who I am genuinely and give myself some long-neglected, well-deserved, undivided attention.

2.   It is okay to love me.   As a society, we have been taught that self-love is narcissistic and unacceptable.  We have delivered a message that we are too focused on the self and should, in turn, help others so we don’t become self-absorbed.  That is true.  But it is also true that some of us, those of us who suffer from internal brokenness and various forms of woundedness, are unable and ill-equipped to encourage and accept others until we learn how to encourage and accept ourselves.  We are the ones who have no idea how to like ourselves, embrace ourselves and minister to our own soul.  That’s how abusing drugs and ignoring one’s mental health becomes a common practice.

3.   It is okay to take care of me before I try to take care of you.  As I pursue wholeness, I had to begin identifying what I really wanted.  For instance, I want friends, but I am unwilling to let anyone make me take care of them emotionally when I need care emotionally.  I know from costly past experiences that caring for others before caring for me doesn’t work, harms me and leads me into finding new ways to harm myself.  It’s a new season.  I’m not anyone’s superwoman, but I am certainly a Christian.

Love you neighbor as you love yourself is true.  However, much more emphasis has been placed on loving the neighbor once a person becomes a Christian.  And, any signs of external self-care that border on vanity or flaunting of one’s wealth or beauty is frowned upon too.

In reality, flaunting one’s wealth or beauty is really a sign of brokenness.  It is possibly a sign that someone is trying to cover up an internal sense of lack, low self-worth or little sense of value to one’s own soul.

Instead, this new season, for me, is about self-discovery, healing through self-care and improving the ways I understand my life experiences. 

How about you – are you experiencing a new era of existence – a new way of interacting with the world that affirms your presence on earth?  If so, please share your comments.

Walls of Silence

Brick-built walls of silence

Seems like they have always been there

From mother to daughter to niece and so on

The language is just not there

Living in walls of silence

I can’t hear what is on your heart

There’s pain and triumph, hurt and loss

We can get past it if we share our thoughts

Sitting on walls of silence

Pondering yesteryear

If onlys won’t make it better

Open dialogue can help the healing begin

Let’s break down the walls of silence

By humbly submitting to one to another, with care

I listen to you

You listen to me

In time, we will know the other cares.

Broken down walls of silence

The healing has begun

Forgiveness, tears, better days ahead

With embraced arms around each other

Love will triumph!

Mothering the Child Within at Every Stage of Life

Mothering Our Inner Child

Remembering moments of motherly love can bring reminders of a mother’s tender care, balanced with thoughts of her firm words of correction.   Fortunately, my mother is still alive.  Remembering her on Mother’s Day forth a variety of feelings and memories.  However, my mother’s day was mostly spent wondering how mothering the Child within is an important practice to pamper the mind, body, soul and spirit.  In fact, it is one way to empower yourself.

One Moment of me Mothering the Child Within

What does a mother do? Before she becomes a mother, she receives an impartation to bring forth life.  Something catches her eye, tickles her mind or heightens her awareness and she opens up to receive.  To celebrate the special moment that life began, she nurtures and cares for herself and the unborn Child within.  Eventually, life comes forth.

When we tend to our inner Self, we are mothering the child within.  We are honoring our own lives, empowering ourselves and continuing to walk on the path of wellness.

Today, have you positively impacted the Child within?  Balanced living includes stepping back to rejuvenate, restore and reconnect with our own needs.  We still need inspiration and attention.  Our Inner Child doesn't disappear as we age.  No, she is within and needs to be encouraged, nurtured, heard and able to enjoy moments of tender care for the Self. 

Does the mother in you care for her Inner Child?  Healthy mothering looks like tender, careful, patient attention to the complete needs of the child.  When mothering the Self, the first assignment is to discover the need.  Any form of discomfort can be a signal that we are not at ease.  For infants, a cry signals a wet diaper or loneliness.  How does your Inner Child send signals of dis-ease?  How do you know when your Inner Child needs motherly attention?

Mothering the Child within requires developing the ability to listen to the Self.  Often, an attentive ear is needed to hear the gentle nudge requesting attention of some sort.  Even a belly ache, slowly healing sore or unexpected tears are signs that a moment of care is needed.  Are you paying attention?  Are you mothering you?

Sweet smelling candles and bubble baths are one way to nurture and caress the body.  But what habitual, healthy practices are in place to soothe the mind, inspire the spirit or calm the nerves? Shopping is rarely healthy, although habitual.  The spirit also needs to hear words that encourage, inspire, comfort and challenge.  The eyes need to drink in powerful images that spark joy, wonder and reflection.  These words or visuals can prompt thoughts or actions to awaken lost dreams long forgotten.  Are you mothering you?

Certainly mother's day is a special day.  For many, it is cause for celebration.  For some, it brings forth horrid memories and uncomfortable truths.  Regardless of what that day does for you, remember to mother you.  You do it for you.  At some point, every one of us had a mother.  Let’s continue to nurture the gift of life that she gave.  Let’s continue mothering the Child within in order to capture wellness in heart, mind and soul.