You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

by | Jul 7, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

I want to say up front that I am not telling this story to put my husband down in any way.  Rather, I want to glorify God who restores marriages, even when it looks like it would be impossible.

I am married to a great guy, who was an alcoholic for over 30 years.

He stopped drinking 3 years ago – something I never thought would happen.  God’s restoration of our marriage is truly a miracle, given all that we have been through together.

One cold, dark night, about 11.30pm, my daughter, who was 4 years old, came rushing into our bedroom choking and struggling to breathe.  I had to get her to a doctor or hospital – and quickly!

I looked over at my husband, who was passed out drunk as usual and I knew I couldn’t leave my 2 year old son home while I sought medical assistance for my daughter, because if he needed any help, my husband would be too drunk to get up and help him.

So I woke my son up out of a sound sleep and bundled both the children into the car.

I knew that there was an after hours doctor’s clinic about half an hour and way, so I drove straight there.

When we got there, we found that it had closed for the night just 5 minutes earlier.  I was gutted – and worried.

I knew that there was a hospital about 10 minutes away, so I went to re-start the car, but it wouldn’t start.  The battery had died!

I checked my mobile phone – the battery was flat.  I couldn’t believe it!

How could all this be happening when I was in the middle of a medical emergency?

I had to get to a telephone so I could ring roadside assistance to get the car going.

I remembered that there was a Nursing Home just a few doors up, but it was a bitterly cold night and pouring in rain and I knew I couldn’t take the children with me.  It would only make my daughter sicker.  But I didn’t want to leave them alone in the car either.  I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to my daughter and said ‘can you be a really brave little girl and look after your baby brother? Mummy has to go and find someone with a phone.  She bravely nodded ‘yes’.

I locked the car and prayed that no-one would find the children in the car.

I went a few doors up to the Nursing Home and told them I needed to use their phone to ring roadside assistance.  They wouldn’t even let me come inside the building!  But they passed me a phone through the window so I could make the phone call.  I thanked them and ran back to my car, hoping that the kids were fine.  They were.

The operator at roadside assistance said that someone would be there within about 45 minutes.

We would just have to wait.

It was freezing cold in the car, but I put both kids on my lap, covered us all with a big jacket and waited for help to come.

It was during this 45 minutes wait that I realised that I had a choice about how I could respond here.  I absolutely love the preacher, Joyce Meyer, and in the past week, she had preached about how God would give us His peace despite our circumstances.  God reminded me of these timely messages.

I chose to be at peace – despite my daughter still struggling to breathe, despite the fact that our car had broken down, despite the fact that my husband was passed out drunk when I really needed him.

I could choose how to respond – and I chose peace.

I cuddled the children and helped them get back to sleep while I calmly waited for roadside assistance.

I prayed and prayed, but I continued to choose to be at peace and calm.

The level of peace I felt was unbelievable.  That’s why the Bible calls God’s peace “the peace that passes understanding”.  It is a peace that looks to be impossible given the situation.

God is faithful.

Approximately 45 minutes later, the roadside assistance man came and jump-started my car.

I quickly drove to the hospital and just as I got to the main emergency entrance, where the ambulances drive in and my car died again in the middle of the emergency drive way.  No ambulances or other vehicles could get in or out because my car was in the way.

I just left the car in the middle of the driveway and took the children into the emergency room.

To my surprise, my daughter had actually improved while all this was going on.  Her breathing was much better.  By the time we got to see a doctor, they gave her some oxygen but said that she should be fine.  They said that with things like this, the cold night air can actually help!

Meanwhile, some staff from the hospital came and pushed my car off the driveway so that ambulances could still get in and out.

It was about 2.00am by now.  I knew I would have to get roadside assistance out again to get my car started again, so I used a public phone at the hospital to call for them to come out again. 

I then tried to ring my husband.  I rang and rang and rang, trying to get hold of him to let him know what was happening and that I could use his help.  He didn’t answer – no doubt he was too drunk to get to the phone.

Another hour later, roadside assistance came again, but the technician was a horrible man and he started yelling at me for not ‘servicing’ my battery.  Apparently, with these kinds of batteries, you had to regularly top them up with water.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Plus it was a really, really old, bomb of a car.  I had endless battery problems and breakdowns, but couldn’t afford to buy anything better.  I told the technician that I didn’t know I had to put water in the battery regularly.  He kept yelling at me.

I knew I just had to stay calm and ‘hold my tongue’, even though he was behaving like a bully.  Here I was, stuck in the driveway of a hospital at 2.00am in the morning, with two small children and this was the second break down I’d had for the night.

He should have had empathy for the plight I was in – but he didn’t.  I kept my mouth shut, while he replaced the battery.  I thanked him very much for his help and began driving home.

It was now that I started feeling angry at my husband.  He didn’t have to work the next day – but I did!  I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, but once again, I remembered that I could choose to hold my temper and stay at peace.

We finally got home about 2.30am in the morning.  I woke my husband up to tell him what had happened, but he couldn’t care less.  He was just annoyed that I had woken him up.  All I had wanted was a little bit of empathy – just an arm around me telling me he was sorry for what I’d been through, but I didn’t get that.  He went straight back to sleep.  I tucked the kids back in bed and they went back to sleep.  I went to bed and contemplated the night’s events.

It was truly miraculous that God had kept me at peace in the most stressful of circumstances.

I thanked God for this peace and his strength and went to sleep.

“And the peace of God which is beyond our understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Phillipians 4:7 (The Bible)

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

My journey out of a deep depression

My journey out of a deep depression

by | Jun 17, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In January of this year, my husband and I were in more pain than we’ve been in for many, many years.  Our pain was so intense.  It was a physical force, attacking our mind and body in continuous blows day and night.

I had forgotten how bad depression felt –
really bad depression.

My husband had lost his job on the last day of work before the Xmas break.  It was totally unexpected – a real shock.  His boss kept saying ‘don’t take it personally’, but how can you not take it personally?

If it’s not personal, then why me?  Why now? 

He was an excellent employee.  He didn’t have a single sick day in his first 12 months on the job.  He always got to work early.  He worked at late as required – overnight when necessary.  Even though lunch breaks were almost unheard of, he never complained.

So it seemed really, really unfair.

Now this, by itself, could have easily led to depression – or at least shock and sadness, but the bigger problem, we’d had hard (and sometimes) devastating things happen to us for years.

We were battle weary.  Enough was enough.

Every time something goes wrong, my husband gets angry at God.  I don’t.  I keep trusting God – until this time.

My husband was in the depths of despair and so was I.  Seeing the pain that he had been through over and over and over again was unbearable – I couldn’t bear to see his pain any more.  I “lost it”. 

I started screaming at God “I hate you.  I hate you”. 

Something I have never felt or said before.  I broke down and sobbed floods of tears in my anguish.

I lost my faith that God was good.

How could God be good – when He let so many bad things happen to people.  I had never felt this way before.

When I lost my faith in God, that’s when the really serious depression really hit.

The physical and emotional pain was palpable.  It was unbearable.

Down, down, down we went into a world that only had depression – nothing else.

Thankfully, I realised that it was my “thinking” that was really making me depression worse.

The more I thought “poor us”, “my poor husband”, “God isn’t good” or “God doesn’t care about us”, the more depressed I got.  My faith in God had always brought me through hard times in the past.

Thankfully, I had the realisation that it was my thoughts that were dragging me down.

I also realised that no longer trusting in God was also dragging me down.

So I did two things:

  1. I finally made a decision to change my thoughts; AND
  2. I decided to deliberately put my faith in God again.

I didn’t feel like trusting God.  I felt that He had really let us down, but I was DESPERATE to feel better.  I had hit my rock bottom and I could not physically stand to feel that depth of pain anymore.

To my surprise, just changing these two things started helping me to feel better quite quickly.

Not fully better straight away, but just a step or two better.

Enough to help me to keep moving forward.

Slowly but surely, I climbed out of the deep depression.

I started deliberately thinking of all the things I was grateful for

– simple things like having clean drinking water and being able to have a hot shower any time I felt like it with just with a turn of a tap.  I was grateful that I have arms and legs that work – many people don’t.

I started also started to remind myself of the ways I had seen God work in the past.

I recalled Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good, to them that love God”.

I had seen this come true many times in my life.  Hard, hard things in the past that I could see God worked out for my good in the end.

I continued to slowly climb out of the deep depression.

I started reading the Bible again and found scriptures like these ones:

Psalms 86: 4 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.”

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

And my favourite in Proverbs 3: 5 and 6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”.

This reminded me to stop try to work it all out myself.  Stop asking ‘why’.

Just choose to trust God – no matter what the circumstances looked like.

It probably took about a week, but I slowly returned to some semblance of normality through choosing the trust God and to be grateful on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying this is a magic pill for clinical depression.  I’ve been on medication for depression for half my life and it has been a tremendous help.  But it’s helpful realising that it’s more than just medication. 

When you are in a deep depression, it can help to:

1) choose to be grateful and

2) choose to trust your Creator.

Try it – and see how it goes.

I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

Can you relate to my story?

What are some things that have helped you crawl out of a deep depression?

 

 

My journey back from a deep depression in 2020

How to stay calm and positive during Coronavirus

How to stay calm and positive during Coronavirus

by | Mar 29, 2020 | Mental Health

 We all have a magical superpower – the power of our Mind.

By harnessing this superpower, we are able to overcome anything and to change the entire direction of our lives.

Over the last 30 years, neuroscientific research is showing that every thought we have causes neurochemical changes in our brain.  Our body is physically reacting, literally changing in response to the thoughts that run through our minds.

Negative thoughts cause one type of change in our brain chemistry (producing anxiety and depression) and positive thoughts create other types of change in our brain chemistry (producing a sense of calm and peace).

What this means is that we have far more control over our State of Mind and even our physical health, than we ever realised before.  We have a choice about what signals our genes receive.

Our thoughts form our attitude – our general outlook on life and it is our attitude that determines the course of our life – even more than our DNA does.

Our DNA may have given us genes that make us predisposed to certain types of physical or mental illness and even certain ways of thinking and seeing the world, but we have the power to switch these genes on or off, through the way we think and through the way we choose to live our lives.

You can’t change what has happened in the past, which shaped the brain you have today and caused certain genes to be switched on or off, but you do have the power to re-program your brain for the future, through the way you choose to think from now on.

We all have an internal dialogue that runs through our minds every waking hour of the day.  Sometimes we are aware of this dialogue and sometimes we are not.

To harness the power of our mind, it is essential that we learn to start taking notice of this internal dialogue and take control over it.

We can choose what to think.

One practice, which is simple to implement and has been found to have measurable benefits in our brains and bodies is to simply:

  1. Start taking notice of the internal dialogue that is running through your brain.
  2. Write down what you are thinking – the more specific the better.
  3. Write down an ‘opposite’ statement.  A positive thought that will replace the negative thought.
  4. When you hear yourself running the old, negative dialogue, say ‘NO’ to yourself and choose to think the new, positive thought instead.  We believe our own voice more than anyone else’s.  Sometimes it can be helpful to say the ‘NO’ out loud and then say the positive statement out loud as well.
  5. Repeat the positive statement as often as needed (the more times the better).

As you start to think positive thoughts on purpose,
these thoughts literally begin to re-wire your brain.

Our previous negative thought patterns have become like large freeways in our brain.  As you choose to think positive statements over and over instead of negative ones, the brain starts to form a new, positive road and the old negative road begins to get smaller.

This is how you form a new habit of thinking more positively.

In relation to the Corona Virus pandemic that is sweeping the world, you can decrease your anxiety and increase your sense of peace, even though the future is so uncertain. For example:

Example 1

Negative Thought

  • I’m worried I’m going to get the Corona Virus

Positive Thought

  • I am taking care of my body to stay as healthy as I can.  It is unlikely that I will get the Corona Virus.
  • A higher proportion of Australians have been tested than any other country on earth.
  • 99% of Australians tested for the Corona Virus have come back negative.
  • Most people who get Corona Virus have just travelled overseas or been in direct contact with someone with the virus.  I have not travelled overseas recently and to the best of my knowledge, I have not been in direct contact with someone who has Corona Virus.
  • I am obeying the government rules about isolation and social distancing. 
    This significantly reduces my chance of catching this virus.
  • Worrying doesn’t achieve anything except to make me feel stressed and depressed.
  • I will choose to remain positive as this will give me the best possible mindset to think clearly and get through this.

Example 2

Negative Thought

  • What if I get sick and die?

Positive Thought

  • Many people who contract the Corona Virus only have mild symptoms.
  • Most people who contract Corona Virus make a full recovery.
  • It’s true that I don’t know what the future holds, but worrying about it will not help.  Instead, I am going to think about positive things on purpose and trust that I will be OK.

Example 3

Negative Thought

  • I am worried that we are running out of medical supplies.

Positive Thought

  • Many manufacturing companies have stopped producing their usual products and are instead manufacturing the medical supplies we need.

Example 4

Negative Thought

  • I have lost my job and/or I have no money

Positive Thought

  • The Government is working hard to ensure that government benefits are available for people like me.
  • There are many charities in Australia that help people with no money – they give them food and clothes and sometimes help to pay for bills.
  • I am choosing not to be embarrassed to admit that I need help.  It is what it is. I’m going to be brave and ask for the help I need.
  • Going through this gives me empathy for other people in need.
  • I am not alone.  Many people are in the same position as me.  We will get through this.
  • We are all in this together.  We will look after each other.

Example 5

Negative Thought

  • How will the world ever recover?

Positive Thought

  • I know that the world will recover because it has always recovered from calamities in the past.  Think about World War 1 and 2 or the Global Crisis in 2008. 
    It was hard at the time, but the world did recover.
  • I will recover.  I will be OK.

Try doing this over the next 7 days

What types of negative thoughts did you realise you were thinking?

What type of positive thoughts did you choose instead?

What effect did this have on your mind and your body?

Did you find that you started to calm down and were able to think a little clearer?

Did you notice that your anxiety reduced a little?

Remember, you are in control of your mind. 

It is your superpower.

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