Wisdom of God, Foolishness of Us Humans

I must also acknowledge that I struggle with my own demons. The major one of course is mental illness. There are times when I cope well and times when I cope miserably. My life has often resembled a juggling act. It doesn't help that even in this day and age, mental illness carries a stigma. Maybe if we gave it a more accurate label, such a brain disorder, the stima would go away.

In the early days of being disabled, I ran into this stigma over and
over again from people I liked, respected and some I loved. I saw
that if I allowed myself to continue to be influenced by their, let's
face facts, prejudice and / or ignorance, I would get no where and I
wanted health.

So I decided to go public. On the Internet, in face to face
encounters, I have named my condition and been very open and honest
about where I am on the day to day continuum of depression and what my struggles are like. I did this because it was necessary to my survival to live my life defined not by my diagnosis but by my faith, values and goals. Another reason is because there are millions of people out there who don't seek help with depression because of that stigma and I don’t think they should have to.

I would fall on my face a lot. I have had depressive episodes that
lasted years. Thoughts of suicide have consumed me. But I was
nonetheless out there high wide and wonderful struggling for all to
see. Some judged, but I learned to ignore them. Many more called me
on the phone and wrote email and told me how depressed they were and I
urged them to get help. Some even emailed in a public setting and were
encouraged by more than one person. Over the years, I have heard back
and heard how people's lives were changed all because someone in the
midst of the struggle and the Insidious Dark herself spoke up. I
never claimed to have answers. I only ever claimed the struggle. That my uttermost weakness is of service to others is a concept that boggles my mind and I am humbled and grateful and lost in awe and wonder over God’s grace.

A side bar to this: All my life I have been terrified of the psych
ward. I never ever wanted to find myself there. But at one point in
my life it was either the psych ward or suicide and I voluntarily
checked myself in. It was the lowest point in a life full of many
lows. I took my knitting with me, of course. after a while I was
realized from the psych ward and transferred to a day treatment
program. During this time I made the acquaintance of an
administrative assistance in the psych unit who was deeply fascinated
by my knitting and every morning stopped me for a 5 minute chat to
look at my knitting or the results of my spinning yarn.

Several years later I met up with her again and she is now a
passionate fiber artist. She says it is all because of me and I
changed her life and gave me direction and purpose and meaning. And
the irony of this story is that I was at my worst, I couldn't sink any
lower, I thought I was waste of oxygen exhaling not carbon dioxide but
poison.

So I guess the wisdom of God does indeed appear as foolishness to us
humans. And since that day Heather told me this, I have been
experimenting to learn if living my life in a way that appears foolish to
humans is a way of life that in God's eyes, accounts as wisdom.

It is not our strength God wants from us but our weaknesses.

Which come to think of it, is huge difference between Jesus
and the religions of the East. God wants our imperfections, our
stumblings, our emotions and our passions. He wants our very
humanness. He doesn't want us to be anything but splendidly human, to be the very person He created us to be.


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May the Holy Spirit dance in your heart!