Saturday, March 31, 2012

IT'S A WASTE OF TIME TO FUSS WITH YOUR POTTER

I hate the part of my personality that is melancholy. I am friends with the part of me that is choleric for my choleric gets me going on a purposeful project and I forget all about the funk I was in. …but this darned broken hip has stopped me in my tracks. It hurts so much to move that I don’t…and that’s a sure formula for…DEPRESSION.
Depression is my worst enemy. It comes over me like a tsunami, unannounced and powerful, sweeping away every Bible verse, every item of my long gratefulness list and leaves me totally without any energy at all. All I want to do is sleep and sleep. It hurts to move so I have to use every shred of will power I can muster to walk and exercise. Someone that doesn’t suffer from depression cannot empathize nor should they be expected to. My daughter, sanguine like her dad, suffers something awful when I am struggling and she doesn’t deserve that. Some days I just want to go home for Dee and Brent’s sake. They have not had a life of their own since 2009.
…but then there was yesterday, so let me tell you about it. Kate, our amazing 19-year-old helper, came about noon and threw out the old food and chopped fresh fruits and vegetables, placing them in air tight plastic sacks for me to cook later. Every sack is perfectly lined up in the refrigerator drawers. At 2:15 Garrett came to fetch Kate and me and take us to the teenagers’ Bible study in Golden Hills. By this time I have hopes of waking up enough to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice. I sure don’t want to hear that other guy’s who relentlessly tries to drown out the Spirit’s. Around Lynda and Bob’s dining table were eight beautiful kids whom I have come to adore. They have bonded. They pray for each other and for the kids they want to reach for Christ. Depression has fled; joy has flooded my soul. Afterwards I take an hour nap before Paul and Terry come to take me to a Bible class with beautiful Christians at Jody and Ernie’s house. I shoulda known. I was pushing the envelope and could hardly hold my head up so Paul and Terry scooped me up and brought me home, fed my kitties and tucked me in bed. God’s kind, Spirit-filled chillun. There’s no one on the Planet like them.
…and there are the Wednesday women. Sometimes there are two; sometimes 4, 5 or 6. ….but they are precious. I can feel lower than a snake’s belly, and in pops Michele, Pam, Patricia, Shanita, Lynda, Terri, Evie,(and Patti wants to be here so much I feel her presence.), sometimes Julie and I am almost instantly alive and well again. Pitiful, aren’t I? One of my dearest friends, Nick, in Round Top, Texas, will say, “Josie, are you still pitiful?” …and I will respond: “Yep. Are you?” “Yep. …me too.” …and we chuckle and promise to pray for each other.
...so what is this enemy, depression, about? I don’t want to think of myself more highly than I ought to think, but have I been targeted by Satan to keep more fruit from the Kingdom? I can nearly hear Satan’s accusations in my ear. My emotions have been so depleted from Ted’s and Doug’s deaths, diverticulitis, shingles, a family matter, and then at the time I broke my hip, an all-too familiar division at the church I attend. I take all these things ‘way too far into my soul and I know that. So does Satan. After a lifetime of fighting spiritual wars with him, I just want to coast into Heaven….and I want to take ever so many more with me….so what’s left of my life is going to be filled with happy people. I will let you in on the strategy after I figure it out.
HYMN OF THE WEEK. IT’S REALLY AN OLDIE. JUST YOU TRY TO SING IT WITHOUT TAPPING YOUR TOES.
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more
And the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore
And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.
WHEN THE ROLL IS CALLED UP YONDER; WHEN THE ROLL IS CALLED UP YONDER
WHEN THE ROLL IS CALLED UP YONDER I’LL BE THERE.

LOVE, JO

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