To Love Well

Do you ever get the feeling someone else is reading your thoughts? I get that sometimes, but when you post your thoughts for all the world to see it shouldn't surprise. The last several month's well documented struggle, my doubts, my fears, how that is used; all of the high points I felt necessary to share in understanding the journey, I have shared here.

David Hampton, an excellent musician, thinker, writer, speaker, etc. has a blog that he writes every week. He typically dives into issues that are personal to him but brings a commonality to them intended to help you think about how you harbor the same issue. This week's blog, while it's something I've realized for a while now, gave me a different perspective on myself. You can check it out here: http://davidbhampton.com/Blog/tabid/1193/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/922/What-Color-Is-Your-Sky.aspx

If you read it you would find that, although there are absolutes, those absolutes are still seen by individuals. I am an individual who has learned the sky is blue, but most of the time I only see grey. Not in the sense of the man in the blog, but figuratively. The colors, or joy, of life is often stolen by depression and anxiety. Other times the colors are so bright their blindingly un-enjoyable.

As I said, I have known this about myself for a while. An interesting point I took, though, is that in the times when the colors are askew it is not the colors that are wrong. The colors are consistent, they are absolute. It is my perception that is broken.

So many times when the colors are off I say, "Well, it's a condition and I'll wait it out and they'll come back to normal." The interesting thing is that I have thought the colors went bad and they'll get fixed in a little bit. The reality is the colors are the same forever, it's my position that has warped them.

I am overly faithless. I'm faithless not because God has not granted me faith, but because I falsely believe that faith should keep the colors constant for me- I should never feel the awful ways I do. The reality is the faith God has granted me has gone nowhere- it is constant, ever striving. All truth be known my desire for faith to be something it is not causes me to have unrealistic expectations. My loathing faith is not a loss of faith but a losing sight of the fact that, no matter how I see faith, it is always there.

I've gotten on the soapbox before, but there are so many who tell us depressives that we don't need pills but more faith. What we need to do is share that faith is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Faith is constant and we need to move toward that faith as it moves toward us. We need to help our brothers and sisters suffering see the truth for what it is in their circumstance, not destroy them because we think they are wrong.

(My apologies to David for rehashing your points. I loved your post and I wanted to contextualize it for my circumstances. Thanks, brother, for sharing in both ecstatic and difficult providence.)