Pulling out the skeletons... Reconciliation

In March of 2001, I was diagnosed as bipolar, or manic depressive.  I was in the middle of a huge manic phase with all of the symptoms.  They told me I would have to be on medication for the rest of my life and it would be degenerative, meaning it would get worse as I got older.  I began to climb what I dubbed Med Mountain.  I was hospitalized twice in the first year for suicidal thoughts and tendencies.  I lost 40 pounds on the medications and got down to a very unhealthy size for myself.  I was struggling to weigh 105-110.  I was unhealthy as all get out and I didn't know how to take control of myself.  Life was out of control, my marriage, my brother, our finances.  Everything was reeling at a rate that I could not catch up.  I went back to work, I moved in with my parents for a time.  I was so out of my mind that I ran in a million directions, my card tower had toppled and I didn't trust myself and I surely didn't trust anyone around me. Ande's mom moved in with Ande and the kids.  (Yes, I walked away from them all for a few months.) Ande got them all into church three times a week, and as I was so out of control, they were moving forward.

Ande and I did eventually reconcile.  I did go back to my family, and I started attending church with them.  I had given up on God the year before.  Denounced him, over something so simple.  It still isn't funny to me, but the realization of my life without God became a tangible understanding.  As I sought God's face, as I accepted his gift of love and was taught what that meant, I was able to begin to get my life straightened out.

In the winter of 2002, Ande and I moved our family to NC for a new start. I remember standing in the kitchen that spring of 2003 and saying to God, "If I have to be on medications for the rest of my life to be a wife and a mother, just take me now".  I  never took the medications again.  Was I healed?  Yes, did I have to learn how to identify the symptoms so that I could cut back on caffeine, so that I could get a good night sleep.  Yes.  The symptoms became less and less.  Over the next few years I gained a few extra pounds and now I am back to the point that I am having to work on my weight by healthy eating and exercise.

So what does all of that have to do with today?  Well both this morning and yesterday morning I woke up out of a deep sleep.  The whole drool on the pillow, disoriented when you wake up sleep.  I finally realized this morning, that I have been in a manic phase.  Nothing crazy, no excessive shopping, no grandiose ideas of myself... just stress really taking it's toll and leaving me on edge all of the time.  Heightened awareness, and the inability to sleep are some of my "indicators".  The good news is that when Ande finally got settled into the Army, when I knew that we had a path, my body automatically went into recovery mode.  Sleep is one of my best indicators of where I am on the scale.

No, I am still not on medications.  I have learned self-control and I know that God has hemmed me in.  It's not that the thoughts and desires don't come, it's that I have the where with all to stay in my safe zones, not go to the mall, not browse the internet shopping.  I got involved in a local bible study and began to get my God tank refilled and today I sit here knowing that it wasn't I but God within me that has lead me down this road of recovery.

***Let me say here... I would never encourage anyone coming off medications cold turkey and without the help of a physician.*** My results weren't typical. Please hear me on this.

What I want to say is that God is good.  He is so extravagant in His love that he allowed me to restore my foundation, with some great help along the way.  I have had tons of counseling, tons of healing ministry, I have had people that have shown me the healing hand of God.  I can choose this morning to either think it was all for nothing or I can be reminded of the last time I was on this train and the wreckage I left in my wake.  I am still in recovery. I still seek out recovery ministry information, I still keep that part of me fed and learning.

I love this lady, and I watch her sermons every week.  She is so spot on.
http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/northstar-community-church/

So I say to you, my friend, my family... I am sorry for the wake I have left before, and that I will possibly leave in the future.  I am being reconciled to Christ daily.  I didn't come from a land of milk and honey but I am taking out the "Ites" in the land that God has promised me.  Thank you for loving me, thank you for walking beside me.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Lord, I thank you for not leaving me covered in my own blood, I thank you for cleaning me up and setting me back on my feet.  I thank you for a path to recovery and reconciliation.  I honor you and praise you for all that you have done in my life and I love to see the true fruits of it in my children.  Thank you for the reconciliation of a mother to her babies.  They are among the greatest of gifts I have ever received.



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