I was brought up in a religious home like many of you. I believed I was very grounded in my faith until after I married and moved away. Although I continued my religious practices, life was coming at me hard and fast as a wife and mother of three. We all have been in that space at one time or another where you begin wondering whether God is there anymore.
That is how I felt when I suffered my nervous breakdown. Just like many others, I felt abandoned by God because I was trying to live right, but stuff just kept going wrong like my marriage and raising a sick child. I became angry at God because of my life and so I abandoned Him (I know that now).
My experience when I suffered my nervous breakdown reassured me that God had not abandoned me. I just needed to develop a personal relationship with God on a whole new level. Suffering with Bipolar was that new level of need. Notice, I said "suffering" and not "living?" In those early days, I truly suffered with my diagnosis. Today, I LIVE with my diagnosis.
In my book, "Cooling Well Water: A Collection of Work By An African-American Bipolar Woman," I describe my testimonial reunion with God. In short, I discovered faith-based counseling. Faith-based counseling is relying on your God of the Universe to heal you spiritually through any illness. It helps you to understand the Creator's role in your illness and life and takes the focus off of carnal understanding of medicsal terminology and science. It replaces that with biblical and spiritual meaning for you and helps you build a close relationship with God despite the medical diagnosis. Bringing God and spirituality into my life was the key factor in learning how to cope and manage Bipolar.
Faith-based counseling is nothing new and especially for our people. We did not have freedoms of religion when we arrived on American soil. However, that did not deter our ancestors from bringing God across the waters with them. God provided them with hope and comfort under very painful circumstances. We are their hope manifested.
I was reminded of just how powerful an influence religion and spirituality is under extreme circumstances when my daughter and I attended the premier opening of "Secret Lives of Bees" this week. Because I don't want to tell you the movie before you see it, or about my book before you read it (smile), I will skip ahead and say only that God is Omnipotent and when your mind is sick, the medications will work when you allow it to.
However, there is something going on that creates a void that needs to be filled. That void is spirituality. Before I new God personally, the medications pretty much kept me stable and I moved through the days like a robot, taking meds on time. After I began knowing God personally, I began to discover His purpose for me. That motivated me to want more from life than merely existing on medication.
The more I learned about God by attending bible study and learning and understanding scripture, the less I depended on certain medications. The stronger I became to live a day with purpose, rather than existing!
In the Secret Life Of Bees, it was fascinating to see how faith-based counseling and deliverance dates back to our ancestors! It was an eye-opening experience for my young adult daughter to see how God spoke to our ancestors and sent them comfort to cope with their weaknesses.
It was even better to recognize how the village was in action to help a member who had a mental illness and worked with the individual to create her own wellness plan, the "Wailing Wall." We all need a Wailing Wall of some sort. I find my Wailing Wall to be writing most times. That is where I turn when the weight of the world gets me depressed. That could be in times when afflictions cut deep or worldly news makes me sad. There will be times when depression just rises up in me and I need to "Wail." How do you Wail?
Well, for me I just sort of let the week pass me by. Then I decided to attend the premier with my daughter even though my heart was not in it. As in all cases, God manifested himself in that movie and spoke to me on matters that wrestled my spirit. That is how God works. He will send you to some place or somebody and that place or person will be His vehicle to speak. Without faith-based counseling, I would not have recognized God's voice speaking to me. I would not have learned to listen and let His spirit handle the depression. I would not have captured another element of purpose God has for me.
The bond of love and dedication is such a major factor in the success of an individual suffering with a mental illness. That same love and familiness enabled the character May, in the movie, to have a quality of life rather than be shunned or abandoned, up to the very end.
So, those were my thoughts I wanted to share and to add that we each have an opportunity to use faith-based counseling and it works. Faith-based counseling is not limited to Bipolar either. Remember, God is Omnipotent so that He is not restricted to just cancers, etc. If you do not have faith, any illness will cause you to "suffer."
God will manifest in your life so powerfully if you believe and He will turn your diagnosis around to give him all the glory! That is the secret to faith-based counseling.
For more information about faith-based counseling in your area, visit the American Association of Pastoral Counseling at:
www.aapc.org. Agnes B. Levine
Author of: "Cooling Well Water: A Collection of Work By An African-American Bipolar Woman" ISBN 0975461206 Winter 2008 Release Pending
www.myspace.com/coolingwellwater (Subscribe Now)
Founder/President: Levine-Oliver Publisher, the Exclusive publishing home of Swaggie Coleman. Visit Swaggie's Voice© at:
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Posted By: agnes levine
Sunday, October 19th 2008 at 3:44PM
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