Dear Pals:Just a brief update to let you know what's been happening to the Pilgrim and how you can pray for him (me).
This week I began my Day Hospital Program at North York General Hospital (pictured) in Toronto. This is a 3-week long program, 5 days a week, designed to assist those who are going through the throes of deep depression. The first week has been very profitable and I'm looking forward to going back on Monday morning. The group sessions have been particularly helpful.
This deep-seated depression has been affecting all parts of my life and our family's lives. Please pray that we will get relief from this dreadful, debilitating disease.
We continue to change my medication in an attempt to find the correct dosage and medicine. Please pray that we will soon find the best meds.
I'm grateful for the support of all the Pals. Felisol, your scriptures have been very encouraging and the comments accompanying them have been much appreciated. THANK YOU!
Journeying home,
David
6 comments:
hang in there Big Fish!
jel
Dear David, I'm glad to hear your report - that you are in the Program. As you know I've fought my own battle over the last few years of this terrible disease. You can even begin to doubt your faith in the Lord and that is scary to me. A "darkened" mind is the place Satan loves to work. I wish there was better support programs in the Christian community for those of us who've walked the road of such suffering - it can be a very lonely walk at times - and I don't know about you but I was really disappointed by the lack of support and empathy in my community. I knew that if I had cancer I would have been surrounded by love and support, prayers etc, but when it comes to mental health issues - even the strongest Christian seems to "run" in the other direction. there is a huge stigma and it is alive and well in the Christian community. David, I place you now in the Lord's merciful hands -Our Saviour was well aquainted with mental torment and feeling abandoned - beginning in the night in Gethsemene. He is walking with you in your dark valley and He will deliver you - perhaps not out of it - but through it.
Thank you for being opened to us with your struggles.
Julie
Dear Pilgrim Father,
you are never left, nor forsaken, you must know that.
I don't have an answer to all the "why" you must have. I just know that God knows you, He know where you live and what you have been going through these past years.
As I'm writing, He's counting the hairs on your head, so cloely is He following your every step.
Sister Julie puts things so wisely. Canser we can understand, depression is a dark vallet from which most people flee.
I don't.
I respect you, the enormous strain you have put on yourself, with too much work and responsability all over the plate.
The work you have laid down, will never been in vain, each word spoken will continue to grow, and after God's promises his words shall not return empty back to him.
Our former primeminister, Kjell Magne Bondevik also suffered from and was treated for depression while in office. He took three weeks of sickleave, but he went for treatment for four years and still managed to be a profiled and respected minister.
Times are hard for people taking on so much work and still walking steep uphill.
Now is the time for rethinking, re-planning and recovery.
But God need you wherever you are. He actually need people with depression to testify to the thousands of unsaved with similar condition; God is here too. Jesus was there once, He is tried in everything, but without sin.
(The oly one who managed just that.) You know even if your heart is condemning you, God doesn't. 1 Joh.3:19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Did I mention the the prime minister we had 5 years ago also was ordained a minister?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you, David Pilgrim Father.
Not only when you have passed through this dark valley, but now, while you're in it.
Pilgrim Julie is a mighty witness that the Lord never forsakes anybody, but leads us to green pastures. I now that you will be another one.
I pray for Pilgrim Father David, For missionary Julie, for my bestest and most faithful Terry, for passing-thru Bob, for dear Saija being so worn and torn through endless years of following her near and dear ones through their dark journey, for the brave Montreal sisters holding his flame up high, for me, for our families; May the Lord's face shine upon us and give us peace.
Amen
From Felisol
Oh dear jel, I am of course including you too in prayers and blessings.
From Felisol
great comments felisol, jel and little missionary, julie
you tell him girls!!
love terry
David, you know I'm praying for you...having suffered clinical depression myself more than once(and still taking meds) I know how it feels to walk through the dark valley...it can be very lonely and even scary. But we love you, David, and so does the Lord - even during those times when we don't necessarily "feel" the love. I know a precious couple who minister together to those suffering grief or depression...let me know if you'd like me to pass along the connection. Praying for you; here for you. All of us are!
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