I Stumbled and Fell then Went Around A Mountain.

"Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand joyful and faultless in his glorious presence, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and for all eternity! Amen."  Jude 1:24,25

I wrote about going around the same mountain as a Christian. You fail and fall and God picks you up and you go around the mountain again. It is like learning to ride a bike. First you fall, but with practice you start to soar and you can go down steep hills and keep your balance.

A mountain I've been going around all my life has been hopelessness and depression. I've battled it, but sometimes it gets the better of me. When I was 14, I took a bunch of sleeping pills. I had my stomach pumped and was sent to a psychiatrist. I'm afraid he wasn't much help which was due to my attitude.

There have been times since then that I thought about going through with suicide, mostly in my fifties and sixties. I would get to a point of feeling there was no hope for me to ever feel happiness again and it didn't seem worth living. This came to a head last summer.

Something happened in my family, some misunderstandings, and I felt completely devastated. I felt unloved and so alone. I knew I had God, but it just wasn't enough so I took sleeping pills once again. My husband came home and found me unconscious. I woke in the hospital, spoke to a psychiatrist and went home. I started weekly therapy and began to get better. I started to do all I could do to think positive thoughts and write down my negative thoughts and give them to God immediately - as soon as I started feeling sad. This was working and I started feeling happy; not just content, but actually joyous.

Then, something happened in the family that was close to what happened the time I took the pills. I hung up the phone and I heard God speak in my mind, "What are you going to do Belle? Are you going to take pills again?" I said, "No, Lord. I've learned you are enough for me. I don't need the approval or love of anyone else but you." And it was true, I felt calm about the whole incident.

Now, how did I learn that in a few months? I have no idea. I do know that it is hard to change without living through an experience. Just reading about how to trust God in all circumstances isn't the same as doing it because you have to. Maybe it was because I now had hope because the things I was doing were helping me think positive. Hope is so important. Everyone needs hope for their future.

 "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

It is interesting God is called the "God of Hope". He is everything good, and hope is good. Even if we are dying right now, we can still have hope. Hope in a future with God and happiness forever.

Psalm 30 - You Saved Me.

Psalm 30 - What it means to me.

O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.

You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead; 

you spared me from going down to the pit. Verse 3.

When I was a teenager, I was in deep despair. I felt alone, empty and lost. Because of these feelings, I was always in trouble for drinking, doing drugs and sleeping around. Many times I wanted to kill myself, but God held me back. I drove up to the top of a cliff one day and sat there trying to decide whether to drive off but I didn't.

I felt dead inside, as the Psalmist says. Nothing seemed to matter - no one loved me, not even my own family.

I didn't know God was there and that when I was 19 I would give my life to him. I didn't know he would give me my own family to love and be loved by. I didn't know he would spare me from going down to the pit. 

Sing praise to the LORD, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name. Verse 4.

Avoiding People.

When I lived in Vancouver I would always look people in the eye and smile. I soon learned life is different in the big city than in a town. Many times people, who were not what most of us would think of as normal, would stop me to talk. Usually, they would ask me for money, but sometimes the men would ask me out. Sometimes the men would be rude when I turned them down, but not often. I gave money to those who asked.

After a few years I was wary. I didn't look and smile at men any longer and barely at women. I now understood all the things I had read about New York City. They say people are cold there, but mostly they are just trying to get through the day without a confrontation.

Anyway, Joyce Meyer was talking about how Jesus took time with people and stopped what he was doing to attend to them. She is so right about that, and I am ashamed how my open attitude changed while in Vancouver.

Once, when I was in my twenties, I saw a person from church coming towards me. I was an extremely shy person and prayed, "Oh, God don't let him see me." God said to me, "Ask him to come to your Bible study tonight." I did what God asked me and the man came.

He told the people at the study that he had decided to kill himself that night because he was so lonely and depressed. He decided he wouldn't because of our kindness to him that night. He became a good friend to all of us.

You never know what God will do with you if you are open to his leading and open to people.