Month: May 2018

Posted on

Bible Characters who begged God to take their lives: Moses

I would like to begin this blogging adventure with a series about Bible heroes who begged God to take their lives.

There was a year when I begged God to not let me see the new year. So, I find it very wonderful to see that even Bible heroes have done this.

My first Bible character will be Moses. He did many great things in his life including confronting Pharoah who was the most powerful man in the world. He was able to command someone to kill another. He had the Israelites in slavery. Yet, Moses confronted him under the guidance of God.

Later in his life, he felt so overwhelmed by his responsibilities that he begged God to take his life.

Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom. as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors?” Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, “Give us meat to eat!” I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once-if I have found favor in your sight-and do not let me see my misery. (Numbers 11:11-15)

Shocker: Those who have or are currently begging God to take their lives are not alone. Moses and I have also done this.

Moses felt overwhelmed by the demands of the Israelites. They demanded meat. While Moses remembered getting water out of a rock, crossing a river on dry ground and other miracles, he couldn’t see a solution.

How did God respond? I suspect some Christians would say, “Study your Bible more”, “pray more’ or maybe accuse him of having weak faith. Did God say anything like this? No. He provided meat for the Israelites with meat and told Moses to select elders to help him in his administrative duties.

Shocker two: God told him to get help from others in the community. If you feel overwhelmed, God might be encouraging you to find someone whom you can trust to share your struggles with. 

 

Posted on

Introducing me

This is me on a mission trip to Texas to help re-build after Hurricane Harvey.

Before I started school, my mom divorced my dad. A few years later, my mom married my step-father. While he loved me, he mistreated me. He yelled at me.

I blamed myself for his behavior. I thought that I had made him lose his temper. I suspect that sounds very familiar to some of you. It took me a long time to realize that he mistreated me.

My classmates picked on me too. Here are a few snippets of that.

Notes that say things like “Satan has his eyes on you.”

One time, a boy was throwing peaches at me during lunch. I ended up throwing away the food that the peach landed in.

I spent a lot of my recesses standing next to the teacher with my best friend, A.

One time a workbook disappeared from my desk and re-appeared at the end of the school year. I had to buy a new one.

At college, I feared that I was too stupid to go to college. Good grades weren’t enough evidence to disprove this belief. This was the first time that I saw a psychologist (diagnosis: dysthymic disorder)

My first depressive episode included fearing monsters coming out of my shower drain. I knew that the monsters were not real but couldn’t get rid of the thinking. I have wondered if this thinking was psychotic features that can be found in depression. The psychiatrist dodged this question. I never had the guts to ask my therapist though.  Gross images of me having stabbed my cat also popped into my mind.

Sometimes, I sat on the couch without moving. “Move, T.” I would blink my eyeballs. “There I moved.” During these moments, my heart rate seemed to be very fast and my mind seemed to be thinking really hard. But I wasn’t aware of any deep thoughts.

During my first depressive episode, I started taking anti-depressants. I still remember when my therapist said that maybe I had broken my brain.

I wish I could say that I am all better now. But, recovery doesn’t work that way. I feel perfectly normal and happy some days. While I feel overwhelmed on other days.