RIP Robin Williams - the pain of depression

One of my favourite actors died today. I was shocked when I saw the headline -- Robin Williams, dead at 63. As I read the article and discovered that he had been struggling with depression, I wasn't as surprised. I knew Williams had a history with depression, possibly bi-polar disorder, or so it was rumoured at one point. 

Clinical depression is such a devastating illness. Mental illness is so serious and requires proper attention and treatment. Depression isn't 'having a bad day' or choosing to just stay in your pyjamas and go back to bed. Depression is a medical condition in which the brain does not properly maintain levels of serotonin and/or norepinephrine - neurotransmitters in the brain that stabilize mood, sleep, energy levels, appetite, memory and more. 

Depression turns a normal functioning brain into a tunnel of narrow darkness. You stop seeing possibilities. You become hopeless. You just want the pain to end as you lose your joy. Suicidal thoughts feed off of the disturbing shift in mood and sadness. Depressed persons start to erroneously believe that their loved ones will be better off without them. This is simply not true! (I have worked with too many of the so-called 'survivors of suicide' and I can tell you, they NEVER get over it! They are forever devastated). No one commits suicide in their right mind. It is a mental illness. And a mental illness is a medical issue/physical disorder. Period.

Refuse the stigma. Mental illness can be treated! Medication, therapy and faith work to treat depression. Reach out and get help. No one needs to suffer like the beautiful spirit of Robin Williams. 

My favourite movie -- "Mrs. Doubtfire." "It was a drive-by fruiting!" RIP Robin. Rest in Peace.

Image Credit: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

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It's Been A Long Hard Winter

It's been a while since I blogged. Quite a while. You may have even forgot that I had a blog! I thought of it once in a while. Laid down and the thought passed. Thought about it again. Thought about what to say and share -- didn't come up with a whole lot. At least much that I figured would be helpful to anyone else. But you know what? Sometimes the richness of God's best soil develops after a long hard winter where there has been seemingly little good and far too much barren harshness. That's kind of how I have felt this past year. Almost four and a half years of chronic pain and blessed little answers. I'm now to the point of surrendering. Not to the pain - heck no! I will fight the pain 'til I die! I am surrendering to God's purposes in and through this. Do I know what He is doing? Nope. But He does. Can I see any good coming out of this?? Bits. Glimmers. Glimpses.

The Bible tells us that Jesus was well-acquainted with our sufferings. That He experienced pain -- some of the worst physical pain imaginable through the process of crucifixion. It was pretty much the pain that killed him as he suffocated. He suffered emotional, mental and spiritual pain as well -- that even evidenced itself through a process of physical distress wherein the blood came out his pores with sweat (it's a rare condition called hematidrosis). How can we think we are not interconnected?! The physical affecting the emotional, mental and spiritual -- and any combination thereof. Pain is part of this life -- it actually has a very poignant way of pointing us toward the eternal -- life beyond the brokenness of this fallen world.

Joni Eareckson Tada knows pain more than anyone I know. She has written several books on suffering and I love her writing. “Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised.”

(From her book, "Suffering, Making Sense of Suffering).

Faith definitely gets a workout through times of suffering and struggle. We are forced to work through our beliefs and choose to believe -- to keep believing -- to walk in faith through the blistering storms where we cannot see. Anything. 'Til after. Maybe. Here's what I do know. When I trust God and walk in faith. I find peace. And ultimately, I find joy. Or maybe, they find me.

Photo graciously provided by my lovely friend, Brenda Fidelak, who truly knows what it is to dance in the rain!

Really Didn't Need That!

Have you ever been at a place in your life where you thought, "Okay, I'm finally getting a handle on this" and then something else happened? Something worse?! Where there is just no escaping the consequences of what has happened in your life. That happened to us last weekend as we were stopped at a red light. We were rear ended by a woman who was distracted by some means as she barely hit the breaks before impact. After the reality of being hit sunk in, I looked at Glenn and said, "I really didn't need that!"

I just finished the Graston technique treatments and my back was just headed into a beautiful healing pattern. There was definitely hope at the end of the tunnel! And then -- whiplash, shoulder and mid-back injury, and lower back injury/re-injury. Sigh. Glenn has mild whiplash. I must confess that I had a conversation with God about why He didn't prevent this accident. He could have! Maybe He tried to -- maybe He spoke to her and she didn't listen (she said she was on her way to church!); or maybe our being there prevented her son from being killed as they would have been T-boned if she had sailed through the intersection. Or maybe it was just natural and logical consequences from someone's behaviour/choices -- God allowing free will to be worked out. No matter what the divine reason was, I don't like the consequences! Just saying!

I received an e-mail with a quote from Gary Smalley - 'Great faith is the confidence even during a trial that it will one day turn out for our benefit.' I like that! That is how I choose to live -- believing God to once again, take what was meant for evil and bring good out of it...just like He did for Joseph! Romans 8:18 says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Then it goes on to some of my favourite verses in 8:35, 37-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I really didn't need that accident last weekend! My body attests to that! (I would truly appreciate your prayers for healing). But what I do know for certain is that NOTHING separates me from the love of God and He will bring something out of this for our benefit!