From: clrclady
Date: Fri Jan  4 23:33:55 EST 2013
Subject: A day of conversations

Today I had two very similar, yet completely unique, hard conversations with two single women in their late 30s. Both conversations accorded around six o’clock, one in the AM and one in the PM. One took place in the comfort of my bed via Skype; the other in a restaurant over dinner. After each conversation, I had to take a couple hours and just process the incredible pain with God. Both women are out of their element, one having recently moved from Tucson to Overseas, the other from Overseas to Tucson. All parties were faced with the gut-wrenching ugliness of woundedness and mental illness. All parties struggling with body issues, loneliness, singleness, and relationships with or lack their off with the opposition sex. We all laughed; we all cried. We spoke of God, pain, depression, suicide attempts, medication, pscyh wards, the craziness of 2012, and the future hope in 2013 and beyond. In both conversations, I committed to each person to do no harm to myself. To the one who recently got a phone, I committed to call her. To the other who recently had a friend vanish (probably to suicide), I committed to check myself into the hospital before I did anything to myself. With both, I was faced with the dramatic impact we have on each other, and with both, I was faced with my incredible detachment to myself. I have been roommates with both of these people. I have shared meals with both. I have been a total mess in the presence of both. We have all counseled each other at some point. One I have known for nearly nineteen years, the other for a little over nineteen days. One I used to see nearly every day and now I hardly talk to her. The other I never knew and now almost see every day. It is a weird world that we live in as paths cross and merge and others stretch across seas. Death and dying have been included in many conversations and a sermon this year. Hope and healing have also been in those conversations and sermon. It is hard to stay in the balance of our utter brokenness and our renewing glory. To balance this fallen world with the hope of Jesus, and the choices that we make each moment to live in darkness or light. My mind is racing with thoughts, scripture, and peoples’ words, and yet I am calm and nearly numb to all of it. It is such a strange feeling like you are living in slow motion while chaos swirls around and if you take one false move, the storm will sock you up and spit you out. I do not understand this brain chemistry, these hormones, this body that I live in. I do not understand the lines that separate physiological, spiritual, and sin. I do not understand why my mind entered totally mania this past year even though I was doing all the things I have always done to be stable; nor why it rapid cycled the year through. No one knows. The doctors have no clear answers. Chemicals, hormones, choices, stress, wounds? There are no guarantees it will not happen again. Really there are no guarantees of anything. All we have is this precious moment to communion with God and hope for His glory and grace. PS – For those of you who know and are praying, I was told today that I for sure do not have Cushings Syndrome.

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