comfort – I AM for You!

Listening is Life itself

Philippians 2:4 (NASB95)

4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

I thought I had learned to listen. But more times than I will admit to myself I think of what I am going to say to someone while they are still talking. Not as much as thirty years ago when I started on this listening journey but choosing to think about what I am going to say next still interferes many times with deep, empathetic listening and understanding. I have no trouble appreciating how important what I have to say is :>) But if I am going to treat others as I want to be treated why can’t I equally value what you have to say? Clearly I am still the center of my universe and have much to learn from Jesus about the value I truly give others in my crowded consciousness. Crowded by the Big Three: Me, Myself, and I. Crowding out you.

I can be watching the stupidest TV show and my son will start excitedly telling me something. I will struggle to look him in the eyes and give him my full attention. I will have the pull on my consciousness that something terribly important is happening on that stupid TV show the whole time my son is pouring out his heart to me, his only earthly dad. I value my son and what he has to share with me. The TV show is, was, and will be forever stupid. Yet I struggle in the moment my son is talking to me to see those values clearly.

In the movie “The Shift” the devil defines evil. And this is the only time the devil told the truth. He defined all evil as simple “selfishness.” Other people are an intrusion on My Plans and I just don’t have time for them. Not if I want to get what I want. That reminds me of Jesus saying, If you seek to save your life you will lose it, and if you lose your life for Me you will save it. If I get what I want I will realize it is worthless and it will crumble like ashes in my hands. But if I realize the interruptions of others are God’s divine appointments and it is where True Life happens I can listen to and truly hear others and share the love of Jesus with them and together we three (you, me, and Jesus) can reap joy.

“Quote”-able: Wintley Phipps

It is in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.

Wintley Phipps

During my “personal, private sufferings” I may not have wanted to read this. All the courage that I imagine I have when not suffering abandons me in the face of real suffering. All that I thought stood by me I realize can’t help me. Sometimes even Jesus seems as though he has left me.

I am alone. And I am afraid.

As I obey my best guess as to God’s will my soul aches and I search for God in my circumstance.

It is here that I decide that no one should have to go through what I am going through alone. If I only had someone to talk to I could bear it. I decide if I encounter anyone struggling as I am, I will help them.

And a dream is born.

My dream, forged in the late seventies and early eighties, when I had not yet decided to take meds regularly and I had yet to welcome Christ into my heart, is being lived out now 35 years later (with Jesus and with meds). As a Certified Peer Support Specialist I have the privilege to serve people dealing with mental illness every day. I am doing, as Whitley Phipps says, HPLP: Helping People Live their Potential. Or, as Jesus says, Loving others.

Am I a hero? Not even close. But I am privileged to serve the real Heroes; people who fight horrific battles in their mind and in their life every day and keep on fighting. Battling thoughts that no one should have to experience, making even the simplest daily tasks excruciatingly difficult.

Mental illness takes the most hospital beds in our country and receives the lowest per patient funding in our country of any disease. It is projected that half of our population will experience mental illness in their lifetime. If that is not you then it is most likely someone you love. And it is much cheaper to pay for treatment for all who need it than to pay the costs that untreated mental illness cause: personal, family and friend suffering; lost productivity; prison cells and hospital beds.

What can we do? Get treatment for yourself or your loved one, treat the mentally ill with the respect being a Hero deserves, and vote for funding of Mental Health in your area.

Nobody’s perfect (part II)

I am part of a team of people starting “HOPE” for Mental Health at Kentwood Community Church. We are part of Celebrate Recovery founded by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church. This group of courageous people, who admit their imperfections and trust Jesus to deliver them, have been a catalyst to me being able to confess my sins to another trusted person (or small group). I read my Nobody’s Perfect post from August of 2013 tonight and realized I had promised to get back to you when I had put this into practice.

Much better late than never.

I had told Jesus my sins but telling another person with skin on freed me from most of the grip of satan in my life. No amount of prayer has freed me as much as telling my sin to another person. Sin loses power when exposed.

I have known for years that I was “supposed to” confess my sins to another. But I made excuses and told myself it really didn’t matter. I lost years of my life to satan’s influence simply because “I know more than God.”

God is not mocked. I reaped what I sowed.

But I have learned.

Hopefully.

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