Month: May 2018

Major depression and especially Bipolar depression is not like some think.  When you say depression they think about when their dog died and they were depressed.  They think, “Everybody gets depressed.  Just make like a rubber band and snap out of it.”  This was said to me when I was in the depths of depression.

My constant thought is that “I just wanted to get back to normal.”  Being awake or asleep was a constant, horrific nightmare that I couldn’t get out of.  Relentless pressure of psychic pain.  Everyone hated me.  I shouldn’t eat because I wasn’t working.  Guilt.  Sadness.  Loss of everything that was important to me.  People who  have no clue, giving advice as if they think they are telling me something I don’t already know.  Condemnation by everyone. Despair.  Without hope.

And satan is constantly telling me to kill myself.  He says it would be better.  Don’t think anymore about it just do it.  It would end all this suffering.

And of course satan is a liar.  His goal is my death.  To hurt God.  To hurt my family.  To hurt me.

Yet the pain is so great I actually consider it.  Like a deadly light to a moth I am attracted.  Why keep on living?  This pain is constant.  No break.  I haven’t felt anything but bad in forever.  Where is God?  Why is this happening?

With all my strength, wishing for something I do not feel is there, thinking it is not worth it, I choose to live.  Satan laughs at me telling me I have made the wrong choice.

And as I lay on the summer grass at Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital, I close my eyes, knowing that this round is over, and I go to sleep.

God loves people with mental illness.  Jesus healed them.  God goes with us in our pain and bears most of it.  God wants us to live.  He used/is using every ounce of suffering I have gone through to help others.  And helping others gives me joy that is worth all the former pain.

I am so glad I didn’t kill myself.  I would not know the joy I feel now.

Jesus had a plan for me.  He has a plan for you.  I am asking Him to help you.

Take the risk and trust Him.

I just wanted to give the credit for the BEAUTIFUL photo at the top of this blog to my son Jeremy.  He has taken many great photos and I am grateful that he is allowing me to use this one.

Great job, Jeremy!

(c) Copyright Notice 2018.  The photos in this blog are Jeremy’s, unless otherwise noted, and need his express written permission to be used by anyone.  The words are mine and now you must get my express written permission to use them.  Also, you must give a clear credit and path back to james.bruce.mcnaughton@gmail.com and https://i-m-4-u.com/

Thank you!

Jim

It was the mid-1980’s.  I was a brand new Christian.  I had been invited to go to a bible study group of those in their late teens and early twentys.  The study was being led by two Bible college students.  I felt very insecure,  I would not measure up to these knowledgeable and experienced Christians.  I desperately wanted them to know that I too, really was a Christian.

In the Bible Study a question came up, and the answer someone said was: “because David didn’t know Jesus.”  I said he did know Jesus and referenced this verse:

Jesus asked the crowd who’s son the Messiah was.  They said, the son of David.  Jesus said, Why then did David call him Lord? For he says, The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I have made your enemies your footstool.  Jesus asked, If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?
Matthew 22: 41-46

Jesus cared about a brand new Christian and gave me what I needed to feel as though I measured up in the eyes of others.

___________________

Several years later I was at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit Satellite Site lunch at our church.  I was being constantly, strongly attacked by satan.  He was saying, that I did not belong there, I wasn’t a leader, etc.  God helped me formulate a defense that I was a leader of my family and how the principles taught at the GLS applied to me in leading my family.  Immediately after I had formulated this in my mind, a young 20’s Pastor challenged me. Why was I there and how did the GLS apply to me, since I wasn’t leading anyone?

And I was able to answer him.

Jesus cared about even me, to give me an answer to share with the “real” leaders.