What does my Jesus do for me?

Now I am no much of an evangelist, but today I am going to talk about my bridegroom, the keeper of my heart, the one I run to when things go crazy, my best friend Jesus Christ. When I was little I loved Him with all my heart and couldn't imagine being away from him. However, as I got into middle school and started to reason with myself, how could someone be the Son of God. I mean REALLY how could someone be God, but God still be one person. I also reasoned if Catholicism (which I was raised) was the first Christian Religion and that was the true church, than wouldn't Judaism be the ultimate religion? Now I am not mocking Judaism, but it wasn't what God intended for me! Finally, I went away to college and lost all religion Sundays were family days and so going to church without my family felt weird. There was no temple to become Jewish like I had planned. So what I did was float between classes, friends, and parties.

My Illness is what brought me back to Jesus. When I was court - ordered at nineteen to a mental health unit and He was all I had. For about two months before I was placed tjere I was in a really abusive relationship and I could hear Christ calling me. Now we all know that schizophrenics hear voices, but that not what I hear, rather I felt a pull in my heart. Then I knew I was not living the way I should and I went to the Newman center on campus and confessed everything. To this day only my one of my close friends, the campus police, and the priest who heard my confession know exactly what happened the night I was raped. And you know what? It was that priest first suggested to me that I could have been raped. Then there was that morning in the mental health unit. I felt like no one believed sick. I hadn't talked to a psychiatrist the night I went in and they told me I wouldn't be seeing the doctor until the afternoon. I don't know what make me do it, but I curled up in a little ball and just prayed, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." I consider that the moment I was saved. That afternoon my Mom who had flown into Indy airport and made the hour drive from there to Muncie, showed up with the Newman center priest. I told him I wanted to receive communion. Later that evening he came back with the body of Christ and I slept like I hadn't in forever! I felt so good.

Then there's tonight. I went to an Episcopalian healing mass. Now your like wait a minute she said she was Catholic. Really I consider myself Catholic Episcopalian with a sprinkling of Pentecostal. I was a cradle Catholic and then at the age of twenty - four I was received into the Episcopal communion. My current Sunday worship is at a Catholic church, but I've started going back to the Episcopalian one on Thursday. I would like to share with you a thought that the priest Mother Laurie offered. Today they celebrated the man who started the first school for the deaf in America and the first deaf Episcopalian priest. No I don't remember there names. But Mother Laurie said that the deaf people probably all prayed for the hearing to come back, but instead they started a new way for deaf people to communicate. So God helped more than just one person to "hear." Also my friends blog Gaining Insight is about the stigma of mental illness. I think this story of the group of deaf people gives us hope! Once marginalized now beocme main stream.

What to do?

It’s really weird when I was first diagnosed with a mental illness, I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to leave my bedroom or in the case when I just got out of the hospital, the room I was staying at the recovery house. I have always said that half the battle of mental illness is getting out of bed in the morning. I still have those days where I don’t want to get out of bed because it is a big scary world out there!

However, now that I am over nine years in therapy, I feel like my day is always planned out for me, doctors’ appointments, group therapies, reaching out to friends so I don’t isolate. Yeah, that’s still a problem for me. I tend to hang out with my parents and my Uncle Jim a lot more than my friends. However, I am ALWAYS DOING SOMETHING. And guess what? I fell and twisted my knee! I don’t even know how to spell the name of the thing they said was broken. It’s soft tissue in my knee, something between my knee bones where the two bones meet at the joint. I know this because the REALLY cute P.A. showed me exactly what he thought it was. OMG… this P.A. looked around my age and he had NO ring on his left hand. I digress though; this is not about hot P.A.s I met in my adventures of being sick all the time.

What this is about is the fact that my knee hurts and I am not supposed to be doing ANYTHING! It’s hard. I feel like I should just go for a walk or something! I still go to my group therapy and I went for an MRI today (for the knee). However, I can’t just sit and watch T.V. It’s like the mental health system has programmed me to not be standing still for one minute. I am actually washing my clothes today which I shouldn’t be doing. I feel stuck. In limbo.

Prespective

I wanted to share a poem with you all that I read on camera for my amazing friend's documentary. If you would like more information on her work. Look at her blog Gaining Insight. However, this is my work that was inspired by her work. She just inspires people.

What do you see when you look at me?

by Amanda Robin

What do you see,

A nutty squirrel,

A psycho crazed lunatic,

A person without all her marbles?

Tell me what do you see?

Do you see a woman lying on the floor

Of a Church crying because

The priest eyes look funny?

Do you see someone who is

Hallucinating so painfully

That she is ripping her hair out?

Do you see someone who laughs

So ill - fatedly that she throws up?

Tell me what do you see?

A bright young woman

Who has her bachelor's degree

in Cultural Studies?

Do you see,

A talented young published

Author?

Do you see,

Someone wanting to be

Your friend?

Tell me what do you see

When you look at me?