As a bit of the necessary background, which is the most difficult part to tell, I was diagnosed with Bipolar at age 15. Though I never lost my faith at that time, the skewed perceptions brought on by the illness before my diagnoses led me to perceive a loss of all other supports one by one, and I found myself in the depths of almost complete despondency in which the only hope I had to hold on to of a life worth living was the hope my faith offered. I remember listening to a favorite CD of mine put out by my church over and over again. It was a source of peace for a mind that offered none. By the point that I had perceived a loss of all supports except my faith, I started to live in fear that it would soon fail me too, so I began contemplating ending my life if it ever did. A life of such complete despondency would be no life at all.
My faith was able to pull me through until I got the help I needed. Fast forward a few years, and I wanted to serve a mission for my church, but was unable to due to Bipolar. To this point, my illness had been the main source of me feeling that I wasn’t enough for anyone at one point or another, except for God. After being told I couldn’t serve a mission, I felt for the first time that I wasn’t enough for Him, because all my faith and all I had worked through with Bipolar “wasn’t enough” for me to serve a mission. I could bear the pain of feeling like I wasn’t enough for imperfect people, but not the pain of feeling like my strengths weren’t enough for someone who knew me better than I knew myself! That made me doubt God’s love for the first time in my life, and from there came other doubts I never thought I’d have. Slowly, I stopped praying and reading scriptures because the pain I was experiencing was too much.
One day in this state of doubt, I turned on my ITunes. I had always, always made sure I specified a playlist, because otherwise I’d end up with Christmas in July, and I am not my mother’s daughter in that respect to be able to enjoy that. However, I soon found it had slipped my mind this time, because it skipped to a song on the same CD I used to listen to over and over again, pre-Bipolar diagnosis. Immediately, tears came to my eyes, because not only did it bring back the Spirit that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in a while, but it stood as a reminder of the times He’d pulled me through, that He still loved me, and would do the same this time too if I allowed Him to, and that even though I had turned my back on Him for a time, He had never, and WOULD never forsake me.
This is a truth that I know and that nothing now can ever make me doubt. HE LIVES! He loves us unconditionally! What’s more is He is constantly with His hand outstretched, wanting us to take it and to take that magnet of skewed intentions off our figurative compass so that He can get through to us and point us in the right direction when we turn to Him. His love is always the answer and will heal more than we could ever imagine if we let it work in and through us.
