River Depths 9

  As a teenager, I developed some pretty severe mental health issues. I have never been diagnosed with bipolar disease, but I would spend days at a time contemplating suicide and then experience other days when I was giddy as can be. When I was 16, ( way back in the 70s) I took a psychology class. In the book, it described manic-depression (the old name for bipolar). It claimed that only people over 30 experienced it, but I had every symptom. As I got older, the episodes continued. I became a Christian around the age of 23. The temptation of suicide lessened, but I would still have days in which I could do nothing but cry. By this time, psychiatrists were starting to prescribe drugs to control chemical imbalances in the brain, but we were much too poor to afford doctors and drugs. The church I attended taught extensively about renewing the mind with the Word, and I started practicing this. After I had been doing this for about 4 years, I was able to talk myself through the low spot...

This was me on our wedding day, severely asthmatic but hopelessly addicted to cigarettes.  My dad had quit years before me, and if you asked him if he wanted a cigarette, he'd passionately say, "YES! But I'm not going to do it." The thought of spending the next 50 or more years of my life longing for a cigarette was just more than I could bear. A few years later, I became a Christian. There was this scripture that proclaimed my body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. I knew smoking was killing me, but I had no clue how to stop. Then I ran across Phillipians 2:13. The version I had at the time translated it this way: For my God is working within you to create both the desire and the ability to do His will.  I went to God and confessed my fears and my absolute lack of desire to quit. I held this scripture up to Him and asked Him to change me. Some people, when they ask God to help them quit, are delivered right away, but me, well, I'm pretty stubborn by nature. I te...