Rather than look on my own impediments as negatives, I viewed them in a more positive light as The Lord saying “not there” where my personal vocation was concerned. This opened for me doors i.e. “why not here?” or “why not there?” where my life difficulties were not an impediment.
The above was not easy to accomplish whatsoever, I had to detach myself painfully from my own personal desires for my life and this took time and a journey and a shift of focus from self and my own desires onto The Lord and His Invitations. Once having taken up an invitation, it then took quite some time and a long journey before Peace and Joy, fulfillment and happiness unfolded in my path and to a point where I no longer looked back to what had been my own desires with any sort of longing nor regret.
It is far easier to write, far easier, than the journey that I know did transpire.
For me
"take up your cross and follow me" and
Mathew Ch19 "[29]And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold" have been fulfilled.
Rather than consider “house, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother or wife or children or lands” in a strictly literal interpretation, I consider these as meaning detachment from what one holds dear in order to follow Jesus. And to give one’s own mental health into the Hands of The Lord is a giving to Him of one’s own mind, and probably most dear to all. I think that I embraced my own cross by embracing my life difficulties as guiding boundaries, rather than limiting boundaries.
One of the blessings of my own life difficulties has been an enlarging of my heart and compassion, understanding and empathy for those who do need to journey through life with burdens. This is not from the outside looking in, but from the inside as one of them and a fellow traveller.
It is easy too now for me to look back with hindsight and some understanding even appreciation at 67 years of age and a long and at times very difficult and confusing journey that seems, seems, to be now past tense. However, I do have an illness (Bipolar Disorder) and while it seems to be quite latent for some years now, I do know from fellow sufferers that it can ‘wake up’ and return with a vengeance at any point. I met at a meeting one night a female lawyer who also suffered Bipolar Disorder. Her illness had been latent for 13 years and she returned quite successfully to her career - and then suddenly right out the blue a major episode necessitating hospitalization. This is not an isolated tale in the library of stories of sufferers of Bipolar. But then there are sufferers of BD where their illness has been latent for many more years and they enjoy stable mental health. One is never be quite sure in which category one might fit.
My prayer is always to handle the next cross no matter its’ nature better than I handled the last. To reflect on that last suffering and life cross and to try to learn lessons from it to take forward with me. What I have learnt to date re BD is to take medication religiously and to listen to my doctor. Also to be aware of early warning signs and immediately contact my doctor. These can be sufficient very often to avert a major episode and to date have worked for me. Bipolar Disorder, however, can be a very insidious illness - and a cruel and destructive one.
louisak - “The word vocation comes from the Latin “vocare” which means to call. And God calls each one of us. Those who have severe physical handicaps, or mental illness, are part of His plan just as much as anybody else.”
Good observation in my book - just as the illness suffered itself is a part of His plan and possibly a very mysterious part. It is something that perhaps one cannot make sense of logically nor rationally. Making sense of suffering is available only to Faith. A read of the
BOOK OF JOB can be very helpful. Satan cannot inflict anything on Job unless it first obtains God’s Permission to do so - and this necessity for the permission of God unfolds in the first couple of paragraphs of the Book of Job. It is helpful too to grasp, internalize and understand our theology of The Permissive and Indicative Will of God:
PERMISSIVE AND INDICATIVE WILLOFGOD
…or reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus, Second Person of The Blessed Trinity. The crucifixion of Jesus, truly man truly God, was an expression of the Permissive Will of God.
