I was surprised to discover a few weeks back that I'd begun to resign myself to being sick for the rest of my life. I was simplifying my existance to the point of hardly living. I was avoiding all stressors as a way of coping. I was catering to my symptoms as a way to control their manifestations.

I decided that to give in was unacceptable. I'm not going to curl up and hide any more. I'm not going to look for the easy way out of living my life to the fullest. I'm not going to give in to the illness and let it own me. I'm not going to be afraid of it and put my life on hold worrying about how it was going to act out.

I didn't think I'd ever fall into that mindset but I did. I might have been square with God's love for me but I wasn't square with God's gifts to me. I wasn't seeing myself ever getting well. I was looking instead for ways to cope, to get by, to get through each day without too much drama while loosing faith in recovery.

I was so focused on the day to day survival that I'd lost track of any future in practical terms. I was loosing faith in a future beyond existance. Believing I'd be able to keep a roof over my family's heads was as far as I could reach my faith. My prayers and my ceremonies were becoming just words and actions with out much conviction or engagement.

I determined today that I'm done being an observer of my life. I'm done thinking I won't do any more with the rest of my days. I'm done being a passive participant in my recovery. I'm done expecting God to do my work for me.

I'm going to choise to do things differently than I've become accustomed to since my illness took over my life. Particularly those things that contaminate rather than contribute to my recovery. I'm going to challenge my thinking rather than allow it to lead me down familar dysfunctional paths as though I had no other choices.

I'm started there.... doing things differently. Choosing what contributes and denying what contaminates. Challenging patterned thinking to improve functioning.

Wondering if others on the boards have identified some keys to their recovery. What keeps you focused on believing for your recovery. What behaviours or habits contribute to your recovery? What keeps your faith alive?

Look forward to reading what others might have to share.

((((((chocolatelover)))))

I am trying to find my faith, whatever it may be....some corners I have been welcomed and encouraged...some corners I feel I am being told I cannot be part of Gods house.....

Recently a light came on...I am letting it guide me, but find blocks in my way....I am confused to the point of maybe believing there is no god for me.....or that maybe I have sinned so much I cant be welcomed into any house of God......

I am very upset by this and dont know which way to turn,,,,I was feeling so much better, a light had been switched on....maybe it was just my imagination.... back to square 1.

Jin x disillusioned

[jefftele]

your post show great strength in yourself , i wish i could do the same , i get phases of feeling as you do, then illness clouds my judgement to a place of merely keeping myself safe ,which is a place of stuckness. i'd agree that a lot does come from our thought patterns ,in my case though they can trick me and i need to constantly check them with trusted friends ,if i'm going to do anything radically different in my life, i do this ,as i've self destructed in the past by doing things i thought were right --they were wrong. recovery is often seen as a step at a time with support off people who care for you, i'm thinking of friends ,family ,mental health professionals and folk who have recovered or are recovering, good luck ,i hope to follow you someday

[nowheretorun]

great topic chocolate... just wanted to comment i'd like to contribute to this thread but i'm short on time.. look forward to it later today... Peace All ... (((smiles)))

[kimmydawn]

(((((((((( chocolatelover ))))))))))

This will probably be very tangential as I still have a hard time finding my words when it comes to this sort of thing. Bear with me, ok?

I can relate to this so much after events in my life, and this last year. I'm sorry you're struggling so.

I guess the biggest thing I could add is that, when doing massive work in therapy years ago it was like I eventually got "in the zone". Oh my goodness, awarenesses here, there and everywhere. Awarenesses that, if I'd had them in the moment, would have helped me so incredibly much. Hindsight is 20/20, but I'm talking about in the moment open-eyed (mind's eye) acknowledgments. After therapy, I worked hard to keep my awarenesses, and try to experience them more in the moment.

Dissociation was the key to my getting through...my way to maintain, my drug to escape.

What I try to do now is to open my mind's eye in the moment to what is actually going on...to not work on strictly moving through the moments on auto-pilot...to include the painful feelings while I go inside of myself for solutions, or possible solutions or maintenance.

This has helped me so incredibly much to be able to see the fuller picture. It's painful, yes, but I hoped to keep it from kicking my butt later (as so much in my younger life has). I NEVER dreamed there would actually be a there joy too.

For instance, with everything going on here in real life (miscarriage, scary pregnancy, fear for daughter's life, raising nephew), I'm "preset" to go on autopilot and function through it all...on an auto-pilot, separate and apart from feeling it. It was/is a self-protective mechanism I have and use/used to prevent huge pain. I just didn't know that it could separate me from true joy, life lessons, awareness, etc. as well. I've learned that.

I have to work very hard to not to separate my emotional and intellectual minds...my mind and spirit, and still do. I catch myself though, in the quiet moments, and try to adsorb more of what's going on...to allow the pain and fear in. What a blessing that has been! When I've done that, it's also allowed the joy in...the cool breeze that breaks through devastating heat...however, the cool breeze comes from a scary storm. It's sometimes hard to feel and appreciate that cool breeze when we're petrified in fear or running around maintaining and protecting ourselves from a raging storm.

I guess I realized that I was not only short-changing myself, but I was those that I love, when I focused on simply making it through the storm. I was working from little to no emotion, hard to reach, detached. They were going through these same storms and I thought I was being there for them...completely. I was wrong.

I guess, like you, my focus is preset to go into day to day, moment to moment survival and functioning. In that, I realized that this was my way of "denial". I still was very functional. "Oh, the rock" people think. Totally ignoring that somewhere a part of me was tucked away, crying, screaming, punching a wall, whatever...a part of me that would surface and I didn't know when or where. Opening that part of me up in the most difficult times was/is way scary.

That said, it's been a huge blessing to do so. It's that part of me that feels the cool breeze in the raging storm, that truly feels the tears that sting the eye just from a baby's first smile or laugh, that can hold my daughter in her fear and upset and cry with her showing her understanding and love as well as support.

In opening this up, I see the blessings in the difficult times. I don't focus totally on the ugly and upsetting...why did daughter have to have this disease, why is this happening again, when will we get a break, why did oldest daughter have to miscarry a loved child, why can't it be easier when I'm just trying to do/be good???

That's there, yes. But now I have a tool for evening that out some and can see and feel the first smiles, the eyes of a child that look to you with love so pure you feel you're in Heaven and are so humbled your knees involuntarily become weak, that even though my oldest miscarried she had an uneventful pregnancy and delivery with a beautiful healthy child, that youngest has been so incredibly sick but somehow managed to birth a healthy child, that there *is* a cure for her when there aren't for so many, too many blessings to type!

In my quiet times then, when I feel that I'm aware of so much more (the joys and the pain/difficult), I try to place what the signs or lessons for me are in my journey. Oh, boy, one huge one that I've learned and I feel was meant for me to learn is to *not sweat the small stuff* by being literally forced to learn what truly matters to me. Some speak of that near-death experience that changed their lives. This last year was mine. It used to rock my world if there were more than two loads of laundry...if I wasn't in complete control in my ways. No more. I used to have periods of literally living in the past...feeling no control over that. This has forced me out of the past and it's been forcefully replaced by the present. This has forced upon me functioning in the here and now, with feeling few choices about that. I found my choices, though, in that which I couldn't control.

I could choose to allow in the pain and, therefore, the joy. I could choose to function, or to "sit down". I could choose stop and "sup" on a sweet baby's smile. I could choose so much and almost anything in any given hour. I had many choices and that's what ultimately helped me...to recognize those choices I did have.

I don't separate out the feeling anymore (if I can control it), and gosh it hurts and I sometimes cry alot and even rage, but more sweet tears come now than painful.

I told my daughter the other day, "If I die tomorrow (which I pray I don't), you remember and share with everyone how complete I feel and how I have already lived a very, very full life in many ways...the rest from here is just icing on the cake."

All the above said, leads to the fact that I have faith that I'm here for several reasons and hope to acknowledge and work those. I have faith that I've gone through everything that I have for reason, that will help me, those I love, or others if I choose to share. I have faith that I will survive in some form until I am no more. I have faith that there is so much more than what I can see...I feel that "hand" guiding my life and it's up to me to to graciously accept the blessings given to me while also working the hard/difficult because I've learned that most I've experienced, I have experienced for a reason. What I do with that faith and knowledge is on me. How I contribute and share is on me. How I make my mark in this world as I'm meant to is on me. I fully believe I'm living my life's calling and the reason for my life...to help others that suffer by sharing what I've survived. My suffering is not meaningless. I've given it all the positive that I can, hoping it will positively affect other survivors.

Thank you for sharing and for this thread,

KD

[Rapunzel]

Chocolatelover, what a wonderful topic! If we didn't have faith, then what would be the point in trying to recover? You have to have at least some hope that you can change or you wouldn't try. The more faith you have, both in yourself and in God and His desire to help you along, the more progress you can make and all the faster.

I think that it is important to watch and to catch ourselves when we are hopeless and resigning ourselves to being sick forever. That despair is not of God, and we need to confront it, as you have done.

I can't resist a note to Jinnyann. Jin, your pain comes through strongly in your posts. I am sorry that you are hurting so much. Keep searching for your faith. Although I can't speak for others, I think that rather than telling you that you can't be part of God's house, they have been trying to show you the way, or at least the way that has worked for them. Maybe the way that they have tried to tell you has not felt warm and friendly, but please don't think that you are rejected. It is more the limitations of human imperfection and communicating in a way that hasn't yet touched your heart in the way that you need or want. But stay open. That light will guide you still. When the light goes dim, it may mean that the way you are looking is not a correct path, and may be a signal to turn around and look another way.

KD, I have learned so much from you, and I really relate to your post here. I use dissociation also, and because of it, I have not really lived a large portion of my life. I went through the motions and got through it, but that was all. You are onto something in that we need to feel the pain and the fear in order to truly appreciate the joy and happiness. There must be opposition in all things. My signature quote is a reminder to me more than to anyone else. Without the darkness, we wouldn't know the light.

Another thing that helps me to have faith in recovery is to remember that nothing that any of us may suffer is more than what Jesus suffered for us. In fact, since he paid for our sins, he suffered all of our pains. Anything that we feel, he felt too. He knows what we are going through because he went through it too. We aren't alone. And He knows how to help us if we will let Him.

[kimmydawn]

(((((((( Rap )))))))))

A wonderful post. I liken my encapsulated feeling parts from the PTSD to my experience with a really strong medications that I was on (several and in such high doses that regulars doctors freaked when I read them and the amounts I was on...two high doses of AD's--welbutrin and paxil, ambien at night, 3 one mg. xanax, depakote--highest dose dr had heard of). I found out later that I was misdiagnosed, and even if I weren't the doses were way too high for any one person.

At first, after they kicked in, it was the cat's meow. I dulled so much of the hurt and ugly that was in the forefront of my journey then.

After a while I was mostly numb all the time (much like first using dissociation, then using it all the time as escape).

One day (and this is another example of the hand that guides me), for an unknown reason I didn't take any of the meds...none. I didn't the next, or the next. The fourth day...OH MY GOSH! The grass was greener, the birds sang loudly. It seems that *everything* in my life had been dulled...not just the bad. See, the bad was dulled, but the good was as well. When I open myself up, not only the bad comes through, but the wonderful does as well.

Much like the medications, dissociation and separation has had the same affect with me. It dulls "me", who I am. It was my drug...my maintenance...preset and very necessary as a child. Again, like the meds, it had its good purpose for a while, then when I was coming round on my own it was still being used almost daily.

I chose to a degree to take the bad with the good because the payoff in the moment was worth it to me. The bad wasn't nearly so bad as it was when I first went on the meds, though. The depression and panic was much lessened.

I later found out that I had clearly not been myself when on the meds. My mother kept saying, "God rescued you." I said, "No, because I didn't have enough feeling to know anything was wrong...I couldn't and didn't pray for myself." She replied with, "Maybe he was answering the prayers of your mother...knowing that you didn't have that insight that you were in trouble and had given yourself to him when you were 11 years old. He took care of His and my child when she couldn't see for herself."

Um, yeah... I can tell you it had to be that because I didn't do *any* of the coming off all those meds on my own. I had not one sign of withdrawal, excepting to lose the massive water weight I'd gained due to too many meds. The p'doc said that it was a miracle indeed...I should've been in the hospital with convulsions coming off all those meds and in those doses, cold turkey and not stepping down. He flat-out told me that he didn't believe I didn't have withdrawal. Well, I didn't. I didn't even know that one could experience bad affects coming off those drugs. I thought withdrawal only came from hardcore drugs, abuse, etc. (told you I was ignorant to these things...lol).

That was NINE years ago. I was kept OK through that time and in my medicated state and ignorance, and brought to a safe place...without my own assistance. That's an example of the hand that guides my life...the hand I've felt and seen many times. Yes, I have faith.

KD

[(JD)]

(((chocolatelover))) Perhaps you needed to reach that point, of surrendering it all before you could begin to rebuild on the new foundation? To free up our strife to heal, give it all up, "quit" for a moment almost seems a requirement to be able to see and sense a better path?

There is good psychology in that, or a form of that. It made no sense to me until I experienced it. I wish you well on your new journey.

I am about to endeavor on my expressed desire to show somehow, that when trauma affects us, it also affects our faith, our senses of serenity and feelings of closeness of our God or higher power as it may be. Just yesterday I reaffirmed this goal, to begin almost immediately. I'm sure you and many here will have good input for me, as it is for our own healing...those members of us who suffer PTSD.

Jinny…. I hear you. The time of searching and looking. Where to turn… where to find that which will bring you peace. Will fill the void in your heart for the love that surpasses all understanding. I’m sorry you have been given cause to feel unwelcome among believers. I agree with Rapunzel that value can still come from the messages brought to you to consider. Messages come from all sources and directions. Sometimes our emotions react and our minds are narrowed and the messages get lost on the journey to you.

I have seen your searching the past while and I do believe that you will find your hearts desire. Start with believing for the sake of believing that you will find the answers you seek. Dwell on that desire. Read, write, pray, meditate on that which you seek. See only what you receive that is good from what you read, write, pray for and meditation upon and think nothing about what you are missing or about what doesn’t fit or make sense or seem right.

I found God in creation and I found God in the sacred writings and at sacred ceremonies. I was at a place where my ‘effort’ wasn’t enough for me. My accomplishments, my education, my life experiences weren’t enough for me anymore. The hole in my heart had gotten bigger and my desperation had become my occupation. I had to eventually take time out from my life to immerse myself in those things I couldn’t create myself. I know that might sound strange but I was so self-sufficient. I’d closed my heart to people. I was untouchable emotionally. I’d closed my ear to messages of love and hope. I’d denied they mattered. I’d closed my eyes to beauty and saw only what could be made by hands and inspired by intellect.

From a place of desperation I called upon God, the Creator of all things to show me a better way. To show me why I needed love and why I couldn’t function without it. Love representing trusting something outside myself. Love was the highest risk emotion. I’d lost all sense of love and its influence on my life. I’d lived in my intellect for so long that I’d narrow the road to my heart. I was living solely in the material world and wondering why everything seemed so cold. Why I was so cold and lifeless.

I started to just appreciate the natural world. I started to centre myself as one within the natural world. As I appreciated every blade of grass that grew, every raindrop that fell, every breeze that passed by I began to see the miracle of life. As each day passed I watched the effects of the seasons. I began to see the circle of life and the seasons of my own life. I became one with the natural world. I began to accept my dependency on nature without fear or hesitation. I couldn’t control the natural world but I could find harmony in all places. I sought to be in balance with nature and all living creatures.

Gradually I began to see the hand of God and the love of God and the imagination of God and I fell in love with the God of all creation. I feel into the arms of the Great Spirit who awakened my spirit within. My eyes, my ears my heart opened up to receive love and to in turn give love. I’d searched and found my way into the heart of God. I’d found the Great Love through my emersion into creation and my study of the word of God. The Bible accompanied by a great book by C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity opened my heart to the God of salvation and re-birth. I hadn’t grown up among the Christian faith and before my searching I couldn’t have told you anything more about Jesus than what the Christmas carols had taught me in passing.

I know God now as my Lord and saviour. I know God as the source of all wisdom, beauty, grace and love. I know God intimately and reverently and personally.

I know Jinny that you will find your way. Maybe if like me you seek him first in creation…. in nature, then like me you may be more able to see him in the hearts of people too. You will know you are welcome as spirits align and you welcome yourself into the place of knowing that is waiting for you to enter.

I continue to hold you in my thoughts and prayers Jinny. You are on a magical journey. No need to fret or worry. Rejoice in what is to come. Let yourself rest in the magic of your every breath. Let yourself marvel at the miracle of life. Marvel and be in awe. The source of that awesomeness will be revealed to you in its perfect time, in its perfect way.

Put your desire into the universe and then just let it be. See every moment from that moment on as part of the miracle that is opening your eyes to see, your ears to hear and your heart to receive.

Blessings to you Jinny.

[kimmydawn]

Sky, I so agree:

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
To free up our strife to heal, give it all up, "quit" for a moment almost seems a requirement to be able to see and sense a better path?

There is good psychology in that, or a form of that. It made no sense to me until I experienced it. I wish you well on your new journey.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

This proves true in my experience and I never would have thought it. It's one reason I used the words "forced" in my previous post.

KD

I know what you mean... the phases that inspire us to seek more than mere existance. I'm likely having one of those phases right now and soon the cloud will come to show me the impossibility of my efforts. But still I try while the clouds have parted to see the light on my path.

Only by God's grace do I keep getting up for another round in between the cloudy days. On those cloudy days I'm satisfied being stuck in the safety zone I built for myself. I'm satisfied I've trained people to respect my boundaries. I'm safe and I'm unchallenged and I'm numb to the pain.

Then a cloud breaks and I'm struck again by how my life is passing me by without me engaging in it. I'm alive but I'm not living and while safe I'm not secure. I'm not content. I need more. Since cloudy days come more often than clear days it is tempting to just pull my covers over on those clear days and avoid any more failed attempts. I've been doing that for a while now and it's not working any better than the failed attempts. Time for a new approach. I don't want to be stuck. I'd become resigned to being stuck and that scares me more than any manifestation of my illness.

I hope for you too jefftele that you find the supports you need to live your life to the fullest. I hear you about needing trusting people to keep on track. I can get pretty dillusional and 'out there' with my thinking and having people around me who can serve as my balancing scale is very important.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and best wishes.

Thanks NW.... look forward to your contributions when you have the time.

Blessings........

[1oxbowgirl]

((((chocolatelover)))) (((jinnyann)))

Thank you for starting this wonderful topic Chocolatelover, and for pouring out your heart about your healing process.

And Jinnyann, keep searching. There is room for you and you will find that open door and welcome hand, as you keep searching for that resting place. Do not dispair. At least you have us all to keep you company on your journey.

I have enjoyed reading each of these posts and will come back and post here myself after I have given it some thought.

Thank you so much Kim for sharing your story of discovery. I could relate so well to what you said. I gained from your wisdom. It made several things click into place for me. I am similar to you in that I separated myself from my emotions. I was the rock people came to for advise. I was unshakable in a crisis. I was outwardly the strength and the glue and anything else needed to hold things together for others. The authentic me was hiden from everyone until it was lost to me as well. I was functioning for the most part on auto-pilot and had no sense of my true self anymore.

I am going to heed your wisdom and start to give myself permission to process all of my feelings. The good and the bad. The joyful and the sorrowful with equal respect. I think I can see the magic in that. Something validating and honouring about the approach.

I read something recently that fits.... 'don't just weather the storm, learn to dance in the rain.' That has been my meditation lately so its very timely you should reinforce it with your own story. Thanks Kim.

I know what you mean about how living behind the wall of protection short changes the very ones we think we are serving and protecting. I've seen how my closed door, my protective covering effects my son and it breaks my heart. I need to open the door of my sanctuary and come out from behind my armour to be a walking testimony of my faith.

I know I've made many strides towards accepting 'what is' and not having to control everything and everyone's actions. I've learned to appreciate the opposites in life and in my emotional responses to life's happenings. I've learned a lot about 'letting it be'.

I've been studying the essence of harmony lately and I think that is paving the way for me to take new risks with my feelings and emotions. It is giving me cause to come out of the denial. Existing isn't enough anymore though when I started this part of my journey that was all I could strive for. To get through each day was a miracle. I'm grateful I survived those days and am blessed to have the drive still in me to seek more than mere existance. I have faith that my life has purpose and that I can fulfill that purpose by engaging totally in the life I was given. By engaging in the life that is all around me.

Thanks again Kim..... blessings to you......

Thanks Rupunzel.... you are so right.... faith is what sustains my will to recover. Staying emersed in God's greatness and filled with God's love is life sustaining. Just owning it without understanding it is the miracle of salvation.

I agree.... despair is not from God and while God may be able to carry us through the despair it is by our choices that we are empowered to battle it round after round with God as our strength and foundation.

That is a good reminder Rupunzel.... none have suffered as Jesus suffered for us. It is comforting to have him by my side to show me the way. Especially when I'm lost in the pain and have no strength of my own. The footsteps of the One carrying me through. How blessed are we who believe and see and know the fullness of his love. The unselfish example of faith and trust and divine hope.

Hi Sky.... nice to see you here. I think you are right about the need to surrender. Over and over again I might add. Surrender to the peace of the unknown. Surrender to the authority above me. Surrender my intellect that my spirit may minister to my emotions. Hard concept for me to grasp after a life time of learning to stand on my own in the world.

I need to surrender again and again from new directions and in new circumstances to avoid relying on old habits and thought patterns. That's one place I find ceremony to be helpful. The repetition of ritual has a leveling effect on me. Doing things without thought but from the heart has a calming effecting. Helps me put aside the backward thinking to let spirit guide me instead. Even knowing that truth and experiencing the benefits of routine rituals I struggle maintaining routines in my life. I know it as a source of healing and empowerment but I still get kind of clostraphobic by routines. I get parinoid that I'm being controlled when I stick to a routine. Working 'regular' hours causes me to feel like a robot. Warped thinking I know. Perhaps a topic for another discussion.

Thanks for sharing about your own endeavors Sky. You are always an inspiration. I think you are onto something important. To understand the effects of trauma on our faith, our closeness to God is worthy of examination.

I guess for me there was the initial sense of being forsaken by God whenever I'd get too sick to function. Being abandoned to the effects of my trauma, my illness, my distress. I thought I was beyond hope and unfixable. By stating my desires and surrendering them to God my provider I am usually able to restore my faith and rest in the waiting. By acknowledging my pain and giving it over to God my healer I am able to believe and recieve the healings.

In many ways it is the effects of the traumas that bring me closer to God. The distress sends me into communion with God my comforter. The pain sends me searching for comfort and God is always there for me.

What I am seeking to be reminded of now is the God of hope beyond survival. I've been limiting myself because of my illness. I've let go of those things that stir the passion in me. I fear triggering mania so I avoid things that might excite me, energize me, capture me, engage me. Fearing the joys of mania has trapped me in what is feeling like an endless episode of depression. I need to be willing to feel the joy again without fearing it will spin me out of control.

I trust God to comfort me in my suffering but I'm discovering that I'm not as trusting of God to protect me from myself. I can rest in God's presence, I can receive his love in my quiet places and I can hear God's calling in my scary places. I can loose myself in his Word and I can loose myself in our communions. Yet I'm aware that I'm not so trusting that I will at the moment of truth allow God to pull me back if I go too far from those safe places. That lack of trust, faith, has caused me to retreat too far into the safety of knowing and resting in God's love to carry me through my days and nights. I exist, I survive but I don't live. Not in the way my heart aches to live out my purpose.

I'm seeking now to challenge my fears. I'm ready to trust God to walk me in balance and harmony with the universe. Trust God to help me when I'm speeding up and loosing control of my thinking. Help me to not obsess or become compulsive or panic with urgency. To not get caught in familar patterns and behaviours. To know God more in every part of my being... for my healing and for God's glory.

In His Way, by His Way and for His Creation.

Blessing to you Sky

Thanks 1oxbowgirl... your support is always a blessing to me. I'm happy to be in your good company.

Take good care.....

[nowheretorun]

i recall an instance, i was about 13 at the time, i lived with my father, a Catholic turned athiest...

maybe for one of the first times in my life, looking inward, questioning, and asking myself... Does God exist?

i didnt have an answer then... the question led to more questions and i didnt have the information i needed to answer the question...

so began my inner dialogue... i knew it wasa critical, life important question and i determined i would not give it an easy, quick answer... i knew the feeling inside myself about knowing something...

i knew i wanted love and i knew the feeling when i recieved it... i loved playing with my pets, and i knew the feeling when i enjoyed it...

but when i asked myself a about God, no feelings came to me... there was no experience or context to draw information from... it remained an open quiestion for me and i made a mental choice that i would look about and try to find signs and information to prove God existed, and what It was all about...

years passed.... at times i re-visited the innser question and found there was still too little information i trusted to be able to find an answer,, and so i kept collecting information... especially when i was down and it seemed there was no place else to turn for help...

a few instances found me in helpless situatiopns... then i turned to God, only then God was a huge unknown and so i put my prayer "out there", somehwhere God was supposed to be able to recieve it, as I'd been told happens...

well, there were no immediate, identifiable changes in my life, but i took note that i survived the ordeals i'd turned to God for and for whhich i prayed to be relieved of... i noted that my prayers were answered in specific ways but still had this illness, and God hadnt healed it yet, though i'd asked...

i now see more clearly... God was there enduringly.. it was myself who wasnt ready and looking back, i can see that God was working to make me ready (i was so stubborn) and that is what took the most time... for me to be ready in my heart and mind to recieve...

i guess i just had to experience enough despair that i was ready to give up everything i thought was true... the evidence of its "incorrectness" was all around me... my life a shambles, and me an emotional pool of confusion...

more than once i came to God completely open, completely trusting, completely ignorant, and asked for help...

things then began to change...

it didnt happen all at once, but now God must have known i was at the end of the line, had no more bright ideas of my own, and began to let me see Spirit in small doses because as a newbie, i wasnt prepared for all that Grace and Beauty at one time...

God knew the speed to teach, to show... eventually i caught on..

i learned to open and trust... it wasnt easy and i self-questioned and confused myslf trying to understand, but again, and again, and again, God came in and lifted me up.. i witnessed the lifting of others around me, i found myself in situations where, if i hadnt had faith, no doubt in my mind, i would have died...

i witnessed deathly dangerous situations change to experiences of magnificent joy and love.. i witnessed known killers become kittens before my very eyes...

my eyes then opened wider and i trusted more.. i took more chances in and began to trust that God would be there, just as i'd been told and shown to depend on...

it happened again and again... eventually i gave up distrust and gave it over to trust completely...

i began to pray more often, to ask for guidance and assitance and faith... i asked and prayed that God keep my direction in alignment with the wishes of Spirit and allowed Spirit to guide me...

i found myself in social situations that previously i'd have been frozen in fear by, but, though i still had fear, since it was still new for me, God showed again and again there was no need for fear..

in my life i know i will get myself in confrontational situations... some are life risking, and i know God is there with me through every moment... i know i am mortal and one day, the situation may rise and claim my physical body... and i know God will be there, willing to accept my soul into Its' own, finally to rest in peace....

this is my current best answer to the question of Gods' Healing.... i will watch the thread to see if i can contribute more, but i, for one, will attest to Gods' Healing power...

((((((chocolate lover))))))

Thanks for your support. I really value it so much. It's nice to know someone cares abt me in my hour of need regarding God....

I am so confused, but will take each day as it comes and hope God will accept me....

love Jinny x

[nowheretorun]

(((jinnyann)))) i believe God has already accepted you... it is now up to you to accept God...

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
Sky: I am about to endeavor on my expressed desire to show somehow, that when trauma affects us, it also affects our faith, our senses of serenity and feelings of closeness of our God or higher power as it may be.

If you've not yet come across it, this article may be of assistance to you: Spirituality & Trauma

[altonwoodsdrphil]

dear Choclate Lover, sick? you? i just don't see how...God made you just as you are for a wonderful reason! he gave you all of the gifts that he has given you and the life he has because it was his "good and perfect will for your life" this is why I tell people who ask "when does #*it stop happening"? that it does when we understandand and are able to rejoice in this truth. when we know that we posess the "pearl of great value" other things seem as insignifigant as they truly are! recovery means healing, spend a moment meditating on this, be the observer of your life, but see yourself thru Gods eyes...perfect!

Hi Alton.... I hear you and intellectually I know what you are saying. I am pefect in God's eyes. My challenges are gifts and no challenge is greater than my abilities to use the gifts for good. I will meditate on your message to me. Seek clarity about my definition and expectations of what healing and recovery look like for me. What am I denying myself with my limiting faith and predetermined concepts of healing.

Tahnks Alton.... appreciate you sharing your pearls of great value with me.

Thanks NW for sharing your story. Your honesty and tenderness is inspirational. So much to be said for surrender and submission. The relationship between surrender and healing. Trust and trustworthy. Meeting yourself at your weakest places and acknowledging limitations without fear or hesitation.... surrounded instead in the peace of knowing.

Jinny..... 1oxbowgirl.....