goodness is coming
problems will go away
like the prayer
take away my difficulties
that their absence
may show forth
your presence
its a confidence
I didn’t have before
that things will be ok
because you will make sure
they are ok
never had a thought like that before
I didn’t know I needed it but I did.
When you told me that,
not only do I feel you in the church
but other places too.
And you made it so.
What now, what now
What now, What now?
In quietness and trust is your strength. the prophet Isaiah
I believe that and it is time to put that more into practice. I moved several months ago and the time I was spending in the quiet got messed up. It’s time to change that. This will help me with the stress I think. I am considering ketamine therapy for depression. I am a little on the fence right now as I have and am going to make some changes that could make things better like the quiet. In the quiet I can hear things like this problem may be bigger that you but not bigger than Me. Alcohol was bigger than me but not bigger than my higher power I came to learn. Ketamine therapy is something to consider if you have tried a million things like me with partial results. It has a 70% success rate across the board. That is good for a depression intervention. It works quickly too. No waiting for a month to see if it is going to make a difference. Ketamine clinics are all over the place I am learning. One problem I am having is getting providers to give me their diagnostic code and the specific treatment I would be getting. That is what my insurance says that need to tell me if they will cover it and if it is approved they will reimburse at 80%. I was surprised they covered the treatment. But of course I expect things to be hard, learning to not do that as much. I could do it and then submit and hope they pay. I may have to take that chance. I don’t have 2500 sitting in the bank so I would have to get loans and put things on credit cards. That is what I am not sure I can afford to do as I have a truck on its last legs. But where there is a will there is a way so I will keep after it and start spending more time in the quiet in the mean time and no I don’t think I want to do that because of depression. I am closest to my higher power in the quiet and he is a source of strength I need right now. Don’t stop fighting depression warriors! For me I have to fight.
Shalom ya’ll,
Salvador
It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. The nature of progress. Not long ago my doctor found a testosterone deficiency and has treated me for that. I told him I was still feeling depressed but he instead normalized how I was feeling. Mistake on his part. Rule number 1. Listen to your patient!
I increased the dose of one of my medicines to a more therapeutic dosage. About a week later I can feel a difference. I am able to stop thinking about things easier than I could before and the day today even though with big inconveniences seemed to go smoother in my psyche anyway. I wanted to write this down as sort of a baseline incase I started feeling worse again I can come back and read this and read what I thought was going better. Depression is tricky to me. For me its not always easy to tell if my symptoms are depression symptoms or something else. For me it is best to listen to myself and trust what I think as doctors do not always do that. Over the years if I had listened to the doctor everytime they told me something I might be dead now. People telling me I am barking up the wrong tree when what I needed was to keep trying to find the reason for why I feel the way I do. I just thought of something and I lost it so. Concentration has definitely improved but that may continue to improve as well. So if you are a mental health warrior working on feeling better yourself, keep at it and if others are not listening to you listen to yourself and don’t give up.
Disclaimer: I am not recommending changing medication dosages without consulting your doctor.
Shalom Ya’ll,
Salvador
I don’t always know
what to do in and with this world
or in it
some things i need to learn i suppose
and to try not to get too anxious doing it
but my heart knows him
he gives my heart songs to sing
when I am getting anxious
don’t always know when it will sing
but it has for a couple years now
emotions come from another world
there’s nothing to say then
questions can wait for another time
Hey folks, its been a while since I have been on here. I have moved to Louisiana and pastoring a small church there or here as the case may be. So far so good. There was some apprehension. Will I have the same trouble I was having before with preaching. So far I have not. Did I say those words? Yes I did. So far it has been different and better. I am still a little hesitant to embrace that truth as really being true. For most of my career before it was a struggle then I decided to quit. Now I am back. Probably not the career path that most people take, but this has been my road, not an easy one, but it has been my road.
One thing has been troubling me lately. I am single. Do I look for a partner or not? After reading a book almost two years ago my spiritual life changed for the better and in a way that I did not even know that it could. I have written about that. Almost two years later that reality is still real. Some parts of it have changed. There does not seem to be as strong of a sense of God’s presence like there seemed to be before but that may be moving that has unsettled me and maybe I am not quit settled yet. Not sure. But the change in personal worship has stuck. Wanting to and being moved emotionally when I do. I have a feeling that will be part of my life until I go to the next one and there worship in a way that what I know now will pale in comparison. That is what I believe anyway. Back to being single. Is there room for someone else. Maybe that is my question. I have a feeling I am overthinking this but that is what I am doing. Part of me would like that. Living with narcissists is not like having a partner or a parent who know what real love is like other people do and that has been my experience so far. Both parents and my one partner. So having a partner who does would be nice. Someone may say to me man you have to you have to. My higher power is loving but it may help to have someone in my life with that kind of love with skin on. I saw the movie the Aeronauts and I think that movie stirred this up in me. The song at the end and all that. I have a feeling that if someone comes along who I am attracted to or may want to get to know I may move in that direction. I don’t have a sense that my higher power is forbidding it. But not sure I am getting the green light either. I have prayed, make that decision more clear. Thanks for letting me share.
Salvador
The Impossible?
“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable must be true.” quoted by Harlan Coben in Long Lost attributed to the Sherlock Holmes character.
About a year ago from this April I read the book, The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer. Towards the end of the book he describes a spiritual experience that he reports is available to whomever wants it. While I was reading the book something like what he described seemed to start happening with me to where after reading the book I did not want what he was describing because it seemed to have started already. While I was reading something was telling me, “you are about to get your answer what you have been looking for.” I didn’t know I was consciously looking for something but that is what I heard.
Afterwards and to this day I seem to be more aware of god’s presence in my life, in the quiet and at other times as well. To feel his presence has been a desire of mine for a long time. Also, afterwards and to this day I have wanted to listen to worship music.
I had not done that in a while before this happened and when I do often times I cry. The emotion is hard to describe. It must be what praise feels like and what people who worship feel when worship moves them to tears. In the book he did not say to expect anything like that to happen it just did.
Even though this change is impossible to deny at times I still have my doubts. But I came across this quote I quoted above and it helps. Besides saying that my higher power has changed my heart and that that change seems to be permanent I have really no other explanation for this. Someone could say it is some psychological thing from my unconscious but I really don’t buy that. I have to say that for me, even though my doubts want to say that this is highly improbable it is the only conclusion that makes sense to me.
I have struggled with, is god real for a long time. This for me is evidence for me anyway, that is indisputable. Tozer in the book said that that would be the case. That for him anyway this new way of knowing god put his doubts to rest. Are mine at rest? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that however crazy this sounds to my rational and scientific mind there is nothing scientific about it. Other than the fact that this phenomena for me is observable and has been reproduced for me I don’t know how many times since that time nor who knows how many times it will occur for me again.
This makes me GREATLY look forward to leading worship again. After this happened I did not think that it was time for me to go back to the church as a pastor and worship leader but circumstances seem to be leading me in that direction. I have tried a lot of other things that have not worked out. That’s all for now.
Shalom ya’ll,
Salvador
I have been thinking lately how that if there is anyone who is for us it is god. The bible presents a god who deeply deeply cares for humanity and will spare no expense to communicate that care and love. And I know lots of people who have left the church because of the perverted way that god was communicated to them while they were in church. A judgmental god who is watching and looking for you to do something wrong so he can sentence you to an eternity of punishment. How someone can look at the life and death and resurrection of Jesus and come up with that is beyond me but they do. The whole purpose for his coming was to give to the world he loves, life and hope and peace and grace and joy. He himself said he came to judge no one. But he saw in the religious leaders evil and darkness and hardness of heart so he called that out. He gave his life for us his very own life. His father struck his own son dead so that we could know him and love him and worship him for all of eternity. I have doubted god’s good will and have wondered does he really care. But for today on this day I think of the Bible as a record of god’s concern for us a record of his faithfulness to us even when we are not faithful to each other or to him. It is a relentless pursuit of humanity. Even in judgment his purpose is to bring us back to him. I am glad that things that are bad for me have their consequences that some of the things that I have wanted to satisfy me besides god have not done it. That I have known and know the pleasure of his company and will I believe forever. I hope I can keep this persective of god who is for me and the bible as a record of his desire to know the people he has created. Its all about us and his love for us.
HOw does something like Dorian happen in the world of a loving god? No matter what they went through they always ended up praising him. One guy burned at the stake foretold as he burned that someone would come after him they would not be able to shut up. Beaten and thrown in prison they praised him that they could suffer for him on account of him. For me he is not like anyone I have ever met. I have felt his presence and it is not easy to describe. Full not empty. That is pretty much the best I can do. I want to understand but I don’t. There is a lot I don’t understand and haven’t wanted to accept and still believe in Wonderful or Beyond Understanding. That was what he called himself when Sampson’s parents met him. Also a name given to god in Isaiah 9. This is the name that works best for me: beyond understanding. It fits with my experience of him, not easy to describe. I knew a guy in AA who is gone now. That was what he thought too, someone I don’t really understand or can wrap my head around, but who I really cannot deny the existence of especially because of the changes that have taken place with me that have no other explanation. I can’t wait to start being a pastor again. Just thought I would add that.
Shalom ya’ll,
Salvador
He died for me. All that that means I cannot say. When he looks at me he sees his Dulcinea. I was his Dulcinea before I gave a rat’s ass about him. I have always been so. So it means that what others think of me really doesn’t matter. Even though I can still be afraid and worry about what they may do. One day I really won’t care. The voice of their condemnation really won’t matter at all and it really doesn’t matter now. I think it means too that we are all his Ducinea. How that works I am really not sure. It means too that the need for guilt and shame is over. I honestly don’t do a lot of things that produce those feelings and that is his doing and not mine. I am free to worship him in a way I have never known before but I will know for all of eternity. That’s a mind blower for sure. I am free to care about others without giving in to manipulation. Still working on that but getting better. I am in him and he is in me. That is what matters most not what others think. Others opinions are reflections of how they feel about themselves anyway. Some are very good at projecting that onto others. The guilt and shame they cannot tolerate in themselves or come to grips with. Our leader a prime example of a really really sick human being. Whose day is coming I hope and pray.
But for me I am his Dulcinea. His view of me not affected by anything bad I have done as he made the supreme sacrifice for that and for all I think. And so I get to love and worship him and love others the way he does and would. That’s the goal.
Shalom,
Salvador
I’m looking for an answer wondering what is going on. My higher power gave me one one time and I was wonderful. Maybe this will be. My mood has been messed up. The last time that happened my mom died. Nobody is dying right now as far as I know. Dad seems to be ok. My fear: the bad mood is back to stay but I don’t know. I am looking to go back into a career I left and I think it will be good. There are fears fueled by caffeine. I’m working on that. None today so far. So a big change, I hope, is coming. I wonder if that is it. Help higher power me to stop doubting and being hard on myself. It doesn’t help. I can see myself succeeding and really enjoying this new work. That is new to me feeling that way. So maybe what is that I have not felt that way maybe ever. Before in this career I didn’t now I do. The change? I believe my higher power is helping me do things I couldn’t do before. I know my heart has changed. I know that for sure and maybe when your heart changes you can do things that you could’t before. I can privately and personally I can worship in a way that I couldn’t before. Now I want to go public with that to share that with a faith community and that is the fear of success or whatever. It is safe with no other people involved. With others involved I have less control I don’t know. Not sure if a committee is interested in me yet. That has been hard, talk to them then they disappear. One day at a time. Higher power if this is it, settle my heart.
I’ve been tired today. That’s ok. I have been in his presence the whole day and that has been the good thing to come from a depression fatigue I have had. It isn’t and hasn’t been as bad as it used to be. And may be less fearful of it than before. I know good things are coming, a democratization of the Spirit I hope where god’s spirit is more plain to see. The prophets talk about a time where the world feels more safe and those who die at 100 are considered to be a mere youth, where the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, where his praises are heard all over the place, where his glory shines and people around the world come to the light to bask in it. Hoping to experience this on a congregational level soon and believe that when he is ready nothing will stop him. Richard Foster talks about visiting one church where the spirit was felt so strongly that when they opened the door they took a step back before going in. That is what I am talking about! Where worship is heartfelt and tears are not are not uncommon.
