pages from my journal, 2007

april 24,2007

oh how vainly i struggle and resist being still!! how much like martha am i in the doing and going about this house. how i long to long to be more like mary who desired the greater thing. i need to look up the passage and see what it says. my year verse taped up throughout the spots in the house where i can see them gently speaks:  be still and know that i am God, psalm 46:10. i want literal stillness this year, the practice of it, the discipline of it.  oh what do i avoid? why do i avoid this? help me oh Father. i can only "be still" by your power for i am powerless to do it.  oh i can be still with a good novel, a good movie, a tv show. a client i'm listening to but to be sitting with You? oy vay. i cannot in my own strength even begin to try! because? i don't want to. it is going against my FLESH. ah, there's the truth of it.

april 30, 2007

coffee, prayer. Your Word...FIRST! a miracle because You know my divided heart.  my grace-heart wanted to go straight to my novel to finish it and yet - You drew me. You drew me.  You empowered me to put You first. seek FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven and all else will be added to me!!! please forgive the struggle even as your child of 40 years (since my "walk" down the aisle at 10) to put You first. i used to be so religious, legalistic and batter myself into the QT every day asap as if it was a law and because i couldn't do it i felt so guilty ALL the time. so then i swung over it seems years later to too much freedom in your grace and love and became undisciplined and loosie-goosie.  now Father my desire is a balanced mind - a sound mind, not one of fear but power, love and a sound mind!  not (necessarily) sinning all the more that grace should abound, as Paul says, but because of grace, in and by and through grace and only in Your power with the knowledge that it is NOT a law i am bound by - i choose and You empower me to be disciplined and put You first, seek You first as often as I can in this discipline of

praise

prayer

the Word and

being still!!!

oh what a goal!

oh what hope there is in You!

i love You God! amen.

NOTE re: the marys and marthas in this life

i remember looking up the passage on mary and martha and being so relieved and quite thrilled actually that scripture says Jesus loved martha! i always had the impression that it was mary whom Jesus must've loved MORE because in the Luke 10: 40-42 passage martha was distracted with all her preparations but mary had chosen the good part of sitting at Jesus feet. but john 11:5 says this: now Jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus!!!! i was thrilled to find out that Jesus loves the marthas as well as the marys of this world!

the L's

Jesus came to minister to the L's i heard a preacher say at a church i visited several months back when my husband was out of town. he didn't say the L's, i just heard him say the following list and i decided it was the L's.

 

the least

the lost

the little

the left out.

i've been adding to the list ever since when an L comes to mind. more came up even in writing this post.

the lonely

the looney 

the lazy

the un-lovely

the leper

the liar

the lawless

the lagging

the lame

the laden

the lowly

the lustful

the last

the loser

i'm sure this is not an exhaustive list.  you could think of more L's too. Jesus came to save the sick not the well. the sinner not the saint. the least of these not the greatest of these. i am among these L's and i am forever grateful to Him that i don't have to get up every morning and put on my face and pretend to be something i'm not for God and that helps me not pretend for others too (though i admit i'm better at the former than the latter). i'm just a conglomerate of L's that Jesus came to save. and i want to be the one leper of the ten that thanked Him for the healing he received.

ps: thanks to d for helping me add to the list of L's.

medication for depression: part two

as a fellow depression sufferer myself, i can tell you that this body problem is a real, biochemical, brain disorder. it's a genetic disorder that you can trace in your family tree. anxiety runs in my father's side of the family and depression in my mother's. my handsome husband can definitely tell you that medications work to help me feel better. if my neurotransmitters are out of wack - seratonin, norepinephrine, dopamine to name a few - then i'm sick and not only do i need to pray, meditate, focus on God's truths, exercise, practice good self care, rest more often, reduce my commitments outside the home but i also need to take medication, have a medication adjustment, get in to see the doc.

another thing about treatment for the body problem of depression and other things like it is the length of time you need to take meds.  if you have an infection, say a URI (upper respiratory infection), you might be placed on meds for 10-14 days or on a z-pack for 5 which covers you for 14. but for anti-depressants you have to take these for a minimum of 6 months and up to one year.  why you ask?  as dr. seuss said "i don't know, go ask your mother!"  no, seriously, i can't explain it to you medically i just know it to be true according to all the research.  we don't know if that's the time it takes for the brain to heal itself while the medication is treating the symptoms or just what.  you've heard it called the "practice of medicine."  all we know is that it works. someone who has had more than two or three episodes of depression has a chronic illness and is most likely going to need meds the rest of their lives (sorry to be the bearer of good/news bad/news).

the last thing to mention to you while i've gone from "preaching to meddling" is that if you suffer from depression or one of the other mental illnesses like it, research shows the best results in treating these ills come from the combination of medication and psychotherapy from someone like me! psychotherapy (a fancy way of saying talking to a trained professional that's not involved in your situation) changes a person's body problem for the good!  sometimes folks start out with meds alone. sometimes they start out with counseling alone. but the best results are from the combination of the two.

borrowing a line from steven brown, one of our favorite modern day theologians who has a radio gig, you think about that!

medication for depression: part one

what a funny thing to blog about you might be saying to yourself but this is something i teach about constantly in my job as a psychotherapist (therapist for short) (social worker by trade) (it does get confusing since there are so many names for just being a plain old counselor which is what i am!). i thought you might like to be edumicated too but if not, just skip this one! (yes, it's been a while since i've used a made up word, just trying to throw you off a bit today!)

most folks don't understand medication for depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses - even those with the illnesses themselves. unfortunately, in some christian circles too the thinking is that a person should just pray about their problems, focus more on Christ, meditate more on the scriptures and the like and medication would not be necessary. end of discussion.

one example i use in my teaching at work is to take the problem of vision and the need for eye glasses. now that i'm over 50 i have to wear "readers" so i can use my own glasses as a teaching tool. let's say i can't see very well. ok. apply the same logic as above to seeing better. i'm going to pray about it. ask God to help me read and see better. i'm going to set my mind according to philippians 4:8 on things that are right, pure, of good repute. i'm going to set my mind on things above, not on earth below. but that's still not going to help me to see the words on the page any better. i still need my glasses because i have a vision problem that needs correcting. part of my body has a problem.

another example we (psycho)therapists use is diabetes. you wouldn't tell a diabetic to pray about his blood sugar levels and take himself off glucophage for type 2 diabetes or off insulin if he's type 1. no! of course not. because he has a body problem, he needs the meds for his problem.

so it is with depression.  if you have diagnosable, clinical depression then you have what i call a "body problem." it brings to mind one of the rhymes in my children's book "the bible-time nursery rhyme book," emily hunter, 1981.

God gave me a body house.

It's mine to keep and prize.

I look out from my body house

Through my two window eyes.

that's only part of the rhyme and then the verse attached to it is proverbs 20:12, 

"the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them." 

if i have a body problem, if i have a chemical imbalance that leads me to have a lack of neurotransmitters then it needs correcting with medication.  i'll have problems with the following:  keeping my mood stable, keeping my emotions in check so that i'm not crying too much or too little (feeling no emotions), issues with sleeping adequately (maybe sleeping too little or too much), issues with appetite (eating too little or too much), feeling tired all the time, thinking mostly negative, hopeless thoughts about life (sometimes to the point of having suicidal thoughts), lacking energy that is within normal range (we could debate normal 'til the cows come home), feeling worthless about myself, difficulty concentrating and being motivated to do my ADL's (activities of daily living).  if i'm having these problems and they've been going on for some time now (i'd say more than a month) and nothing seems to be helping, then i might have a body problem since God gave us a body house! if you look at this list all together, doesn't it look like a list of physical ailments? then why oh why do we accuse ourselves and each other of having a spiritual problem instead? it's difficult to explain in a short blog post but i want to give you a bit of an idea of what i'm talking about. 

look for part two in tomorrow's post!

can you imagine being that interesting?

i am one of five children. i truly and deeply love all my sibs but i want to tell you about my baby brother preston, named after our maternal grandfather. he has led such an amazing life thus far for his young years (he's ten years younger than me) that one day years ago i slipped up and not realizing what i was saying to my husband i opened mouth, inserted foot and said:  can you imagine being **that** interesting?

it's a good thing my husband is not short on self esteem (which comes from God esteem) because though he got my oops! it didn't phase him one bit.  we laughed and laughed about my oops!

my brother pres lived in france for several years after graduating from college. he says he lived there so long that he began to dream in french.  he set out without any connections to speak of with the goal of living abroad for a few years and so he did.  back to the states for his masters in linguistics and then he went to taiwan to live for a few years to make more money than he could in the states (sounds like an excuse for another adventure to me!) translating children's books from chinese into english (if i've got that right, it's very hard to keep up).  

it was in taiwan preston met his wife-to-be vered who is from.....israel! she was abroad collecting data for her asian studies masters and they ended up being roommates with two other people and lell in fuv! they quickly became twitterpaited (from "bambi").

being raised in our pentecostal-jewish home with the "believe whatever you want to believe" mentality, he chose to convert to judaism to marry vered and because of circumstances i'm not sure i could explain here (something to do with a green card?) they were first married in the u.s. by the justice of the peace. then, they were married a second time a year later in tel aviv, israel with a big jewish wedding with the chuppah (the canopy under which the couple stands) and the ketubah (the formal wedding contract) and the smashing of the glass just like in "fiddler on the roof" (oy vay, i tell you, it must've been beautiful) (are you catching my drift here: can you imagine being this interesting???????). oh how i regret not attending that wedding. i can't remember all my excuses for not going - money, time commitments, etc. - but oh how i wish i'd been there. 

now they live in delaware and have made beautiful music together along with two beautiful girls noa and ariel.  in israel names are neither male nor female - they're interchangeable -  for example noah over here would be a boy's name but in israel it's a girl's name as well. or ariel in israel can be a boy's name like ariel sharon.  each of their girls are multilingual. pres speaks only french to them every day. vered speaks only hebrew to them. and they speak english at school.  my brother who now has a doctorate in linguistics speaks a few other languages and throws in some spanish for the girls and probably some chinese for all i know.  

though he speaks many languages well, his first language is english afterall and he's written 4 books (fiction) in his spare time! he's combined the first 3 into one and has an agent in new york city to tote it to publishers.  i've read the first two books and they were quick, exciting reads of a story taking place in israel and palestine.  best wishes to him for getting them published. remember, i knew you when!

i still say:  can you imagine being **that** interesting?  

one very important postscript:  the interesting brother has a very interesting mother - ours!  she traveled to the places he lived - france and taiwan (they toured china and hong kong); she went to his wedding in tel aviv in 1999 and in 2007 i nervously put her on a plane by herself to meet him all the way around the world at a meeting in cairo, egypt! she doesn't miss a beat in keeping up with her youngest child. i'm just proud all the way around! here's two pics of them in egypt hh helped me add to this post.

married at least 80 years

when handsome husband and i married we determined to be married at least 80 years.  we'd each come from divorced families.  his parents divorced when he was 4 months old and mine when i was 20.   we determined that in the Lord and to the best of our abilities we would stay married.  our goal was at least 80 years even though marrying at 25 and 28 that would make us 105 and 108 respectively!

but then a year or so into our marriage, hh came to me and said "honey, we've set our sights too low" and showed me an article of a couple who'd been married 80 years.  throughout our 26 years of marriage he has continued to bring me articles from the paper, magazines or off the internet of couples who've met our goal of 80 years  - a source of encouragement to say the least but also a wink from God about the 80 years goal we set!

i've kept several of the articles. one in "world" magazine reads:  

eighty and counting.  

love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. which may or may not have been what frank and anita milford drove away from their wedding ceremony on may 26, 1928, in torpoint, a village in southwest england.  in may the couple celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary in the plymouth nursing home where they both live.  mrs. milford says the pair met in 1926 at ymca dances while attempting to foxtrot.  "he used to step on my feet." mrs. milford, now 99 said. mr. milford, now 100 made up for it, though: she still wears the engagement ring costing six pounds that he bought her. 

a second article from the washington times off the internet, september 7, 2006 reads:

harve de grace, md 

couple marks 80 years together

margaret and donald mergler's relationship got off to an underwhelming start when he took the wheels off her toy baby carriage to make a scooter when they were in grade school - during the wilson administration.  "i didn't think too much of him then,"  mrs. mergler says of the boy who grew into the man she married in 1926. she does now. on monday, the merglers marked their 80th wedding anniversary, and the husband and wife - both 98 years old - are likely the oldest living couple in the united states.  mr. and mrs. mergler were both born in harvre de grace, a historic small town that smells of fresly cut grass and sits about 30 miles north of baltimore.

a third (faux) article was written september 20, 2006 by hh and sent to me via email with the above article included at the top and this one at the bottom: 

arkansas democrat-gazette

couple marks 80 years together

january 3, 2063

little rock, ar 

catching some z's and hh (code names used to protect the innocent) marked their 80th wedding anniversary yesterday and are probably the oldest living couple in the united states. mr. and mrs. hh both grew up in little rock and have lived here the past 72 years since 1991......

hh, i think i'll keep him - at least for 80 years!

april is national poetry month

last week i told you that april is national sexual assault awareness month. what a heavy post that was. there are many and varied topics for each month on our calendar. april is also national poetry month according to a link a co-worker sent me to explore.

here it is for you at www.poets.org/freeverse if you'd like to look at some fun photos taken of free verse written on things like mirrors, chalk boards, typewritters, leaves, fingers, cookies and the like.  

see if you can find a few of my favorites by looking at the section:  free verse: poetry in the wild. or today is said free verse (pool).  every time i've looked at it they've added more entries and changed the website up a bit.

1. mary oliver's the summer day:  tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

2. ode to a potato: how many deals can a man make before he stops being small potatoes?

3. rise up from the stump of sorrow and be green also like the diligent leaves

4. covering two years by weldon kees: parts of a sentence, hanging in the air

it's a very creative site to explore when you have a few minutes to spare. enjoy!  thanks for sharing cp.