My struggle to find the Lord Jesus Christ has been a long one. Diagnosed with bipolar depression at the height of my youth, it has been a journey filled with many trials, heartache, grief and pain. Not everybody finds the Lord in the same way. Some find him easily because their hearts have always been opened or they may have less strongholds to overcome. Some are fortunate enough to have stable families, where love and acceptance is plentiful- families who respect and worship God. Some of us are born with temperaments that make us more receptive to the Word at first go. The truth is, all of us have a God-given path in life. Some paths start off difficult at first, some paths end difficult. Some paths are difficult throughout and some paths are easier than others. Some of us like myself, are born with an illness that makes it difficult to see the light of hope, where the struggle to find the light of God is a real, winding and precarious task. But the path to God lies in the heart of the individual person. The perseverance to seek Him repeatedly despite unfavourable circumstances, in spite of stumbling and failing, eventually leads us to our loving Father, who opens His arms to receive us.
How close we get to Him, how strong our relationship with Him becomes, rests on how much we are willing to leave everything behind, to take up the cross and to follow Him. While we often think of this in terms of material wealth, it is just as difficult to leave behind our pride, our anger, our hurt, our grief, our condemnation, our disappointments, our hatred and the sins of our flesh to follow Jesus Christ. The truth is, the more we leave behind, the closer we will be able to walk with Him. However, letting go is sometimes not only hard, it is painful and extremely difficult…so difficult that it takes Jesus himself, to help us leave it behind.
Surrendering some of our emotional baggage to Him and choosing to carry some of that baggage on our own sets us up for failure. We cannot find rest, if we choose to bear even some of the burdens that the Lord willingly offers to carry for us. It is not that we cannot walk with Him if we choose to carry our burdens on our own. We can still have a relationship with God but the more we carry with us, the more burdened and laden we are. It is a matter of time before our human flesh and strength will fail. We eventually fall behind through sheer exhaustion.
I first accepted Jesus Christ when I was fourteen. However, I was to find out that acceptance and salvation was one thing, having a relationship with Him was quite another. You cannot start a relationship with God or another human being if we cannot let go of the emotional baggage we carry with us. So while I accepted him then, I refused to forsake all, leaving behind all things to follow Him. That was a big mistake I made in my initial walk with Him, one that through my own ignorance and doing, led me to become disillusioned and made me vulnerable to the voice of the Evil One. For everything I carried with me, became potential footholds for Satan to gain inroads into my life. As my mental illness progressed, I found myself taken further and further away from the Way, the Truth and the Light. Reality had given way to dangerous and deceptive illusions for which I seemed unable to navigate my way back.
Years of holding on to my hurt, to my pride, my pain and my unforgiveness, resulted in my dying inside day by day. It took me a long time to admit that I had finally been broken. It took me even longer still to admit that I was ill. There was denial, then anger and fear. It was fear that kept me from the very things that I needed to do to get better. I was so broken inside that I could no longer remember how it felt to feel well. Sadness and darkness had become such close companions that I forgot what it felt to be happy. I had been in the dark cloud of depression for so long that even the idea of moving towards the light seemed painful.
Sufferers of bipolar depression can tell you, they go through hell and back again and again and again. For me, it seemed as if a deep chasm had come between God and I. I was lost and when you are lost for too long, you lose hope. The loss of hope as I painfully found out, is also the start of spiritual death. The absence of Hope leads to Despair, and Despair leads to Death.
The bible tells is to seek and we will find. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. As unbelievable as this seemed at that time, with each step through my journey, I discovered the power of His word…..words and instructions that would breathe life into my dead soul. Finding Jesus Christ gave me new life. His grace and forgiveness brought me hope. He opened my eyes to the truth, and the truth set me free. My struggles never disappeared. He just gave me the strength to handle them better. He is the only constant light that still shines through all my episodes of darkness. I no longer need to sit in the dark feeling alone and afraid. My imperfect life has become His. My burdens have become Jesus’ burdens. When I collapse under the weight of my cross, He picks it up for me and carries it for me till I am strengthened again because He tells me, “My child, I have done it all before. Let me bear it for you.”
The following blog entries I will be posting, is my way of sharing me experiences and to encourage, all those whose paths to the Lord Jesus Christ seem difficult. It is for those who feel condemned and unloved because of whatever they went through or are going through. This blog is for the people who long for Jesus yet feel they are not worthy to seek Him. It is for those who feel they can no longer be forgiven, who are too ashamed to seek a relationship with God, or feel too unworthy and sick to walk into the open arms of Jesus. It is for the souls that struggle each day within themselves, with illnesses, abuse and difficulty or those who have loved ones who do so. You are not condemned and alone. Your loved ones are not condemned and alone Jesus sees and hears. He is always waiting, the way He waited for me to come to Him. He is waiting for you.
