2009 in Review

"It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times" a very good opening for a Tale of Two cities and also a very good explanation of 2009 for me.

Grind a stone down slowly and that is what it has been like, painful, long, exhausting, and transforming. We started the beginning of 2009 with me painfully depressed, self harming and suicidal. A human wreckage, not really even wanting to cling to life anymore. I had in reality probably been like that for at least 6 months, there was so much inner turmoil that the pain was so hard to bear that to cope I would hurt myself so I could concentrate on something else. Very bleak days.
Medication, psychiatrist and trying to help myself were in some way helping, but I was convinced that I was going to remain that way for the rest of my life, living on the knife edge.

In the middle of the year I was doing somewhat better, being more controlled than I had been. We went away to the Flinders Ranges for our annual holiday with my husbands sister and their family. My kids were sick, and I got sick - very sick. While my husband and his sister were driving me to a doctors appointment a 40 minute drive from where we were staying, where there was limited telephone reception, I went into respiratory failure. I lost circulation to my legs, arms and was last stage colour for hypoxia. My arms locked into position, my eyes started rolling to the back of my head, my sister in law had to maintain my airway, when I could speak it was one word at a time and in the end it was slurry like I had been drinking. At that stage she administered my nephews epi pen to me, which made my lungs open up. I had really no idea what was going on, I can remember telling them that God was in control, and I felt it more firmly than you could imagine. Rock solid.

Truly I didn't fully understand until a month later how close I had come to dying, but I know that I instantly felt so much appreciation for my life. It took about 6 weeks to get better after that and in 6 months we are going back there and I am concerned for how the husband and the sister in law will take it. Time will tell.

Did it cure my depression, No. Did it end the suicidal thoughts, yes, and the self harming, yes. Or maybe as a bi product of that instance I just decided to chose differently, and chose differently every day from then on.

The last 3 to 4 months have been better than they have been in such a long long time, weeks and weeks of feeling "normal", for the dispair and pain to just be gone altogether. I still have days where the emotions are in overdrive and I cling hard to the fact that it will pass, and ride out the storm, its hard work though.

Even in the last 5 weeks I have had days where the prayer has been "please God, I can hardly do this anymore, I can barely cope". We get through.

It hasn't been all bad, but it hasn't been great, and in previous years I have foolishly thought "next year will be better", but this year I think, it doesn't matter what happens this year, this year I will do everything to the Glory of God. No resolutions, no other commitments, God is in Control- and that is my motto probably till I die now, and I will live to Glorify Him Alone.

Yahweh is the only true God, and Jesus Christ is the only way to get to him. People will tell you that there are many ways to God, but the Bible says that you can only get to the Father through Christ the Son. People will tell you, be good, do your best, and that will count (even in some christian circles the message lived out is that you should be perfect now) but it won't. God is Holy. Holiness is Perfection. We are not Perfect. Jesus is and was. Tell God that you are not worthy but the death of Christ was for you and you accept it. I don't want a God that makes me work for my salvation, because I will NEVER EVER earn it. Its not a bad thing. He has done the work for us. I find it hard to believe that we will believe scientists who have been proven untrue regarding certain world situations, and yet people will believe that the God who created them, in the very beginning, and gave us a free will, does not love us and does not exist. We just banged into the atmosphere, from nothing, and it all slotted together a perfect eco system that could sustain life. Even kids don't believe that kind of story, and we teach it in our high schools as fact.

So unlike a fairy tale I cannot tell you that I will live Happily Ever After. It isn't reality, and I reckon it isn't your reality either. I have dreams and hopes but truly in the end I want to get to the end and say "God I gave it my best shot, and I did it all for you. I mucked up a bit, but thanks for your help through those bits, I want it all to Glorify you."

2009 is not the great story of I nearly died and God saved me and He cured me! I believe that God did save me, so many things had to have happened, years and years before that moment so that I would live, and to some extent I am cured of the nasty end of the depression. In all honesty though I can sit here and tell you that even now the the dispair and emotional pain sit outside the boundaries I have set myself waiting to jump in and take over.

I pray constantly that in all situations I will Glorify God. I want to be an honest Christian, I want to show you that we are normal people, that some of us don't judge, some of us do, but regret it. We are hypocrites, our marriages are rocky and hard work, our kids are not perfect and we have no right to judge others. Jesus told the pharisees to get the tree out of their own eye before dealing with the plank in their brothers. We suffer from that, many christians are pharisees in disguise with our perfect houses, perfect children, perfect church attendance, perfect clothing choice, perfect choice of words for social situations.. It isn't reality. Please come to my house I will show you how perfect we AREN'T. God doesn't love me because I have achieved any kind of status, God loves me because He made me. I love my kids because I gave birth to them, no matter what they do I will always love them and want the best for them, even when it hurts them a little. God loves you too, in your dispair, in your self perfection, in your abilities and inabilities. The Bible, and therefore God, says this "Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest" Can you find another religion anywhere where the diety saving says that?

If you ignore God, if you force Him away, he will step aside. Just don't go asking "how can God let all the bad stuff happen?" In the end He will be told to stand back and to Go away enough that He will. Don't wait for that to happen, go to him now. You are His beloved, and even if nobody ever loved you before, He has always Loved you, and He LONGS to meet with you.

Make 2010 the year that you sought out God, even if it is just to find out if He really is there. Look for Him, He is waiting for you, He won't force you, you have to chose.
Happily Ever After is a fairy tale, but God can take the story of your life and change it into something that is more meaningful even in a pit of dispair, than you can ever ever imagine.
And really when you think about it, what is there to lose if you look for Him? Nothing, but if He is there really and truly, what could you gain? Everything... take a chance, I dare you.