Day 105 Descending Darkness

"Do you want to get well?"

That was the question posed this morning in church.  "Do you want to get well?"  The worship leader had just gotten out of the hospital and had been there for five days with a contagious condition.

That was the question the Master asked a paralyzed man who'd been that way a long, long time. The question was simple, but the man didn't respond with a yes or a no. He responded with an excuse.  

"Do you want to get well?"

The question has bounced around in my mind all day long. It's a question that pairs nicely with wanting to be whole. The question was easy enough to answer, just one word needed. Yet,  the question wasn't answered simply. 


And the question is simple.  If you answer yes or no, you know what direction your life is headed. If you answer no, you continue on in your addictions.  Drugs, alcohol, sex, money, power - they all can take the role of addiction in our lives.

A yes answer. A yes answer helps you turn away from those life suckers. A yes doesn't mean you've mastered any of them, just that you are being intentional about wanting to be well. That you will try to make your decisions and choices based on the yes answer to "Do you want to get well?"

Yes, I want to get well.  This week my blood sugar has been in been control - that's a yes answer. There have been some set backs too. My fasting blood sugar hasn't been in the low 100's every day this past week. It's just been a lot better.

Today, I could feel the darkness of depression descending on me the way a curtain falls at the end of a stage performance. It's heavy and dark and suffocating.  It doesn't feel like there is any way out from beneath the weight.  Then, the question pops into my brain. Yes, I want to get well.

Days like today make it seem like an impossibility.  The lethargy, the lack of motivation, the overwhelming sense that it is all for naught ties my limbs in place and makes thinking difficult.  

Hope fled behind the dark clouds of the thunderstorms. Giving up would be so easy right now.

Then the question replays and I think, yes, I want to be well. I want to see and be light. I want to assist people, I want to dance in the rain, I want to take dinners to my friends who are ill, I want to sit at the bedside of the hospitalized, I want to make the energy I'm given do something positive to help others.

I don't know if I need medication to fight the darkness. I may. Maybe for a short while, maybe for a lifetime. I don't know.  I do know that mental illness, especially depression runs in my family.  I know for my kids this is a very real monster that double wound into their DNA.

Today, I was aimless. The day started off fine, then my blood sugar crashed and I've been struggling with the day ever since. I have a check list for tomorrow - definitive things to accomplish if I can motivate myself to concentrate on the list and check off those items. 

The motivation part is difficult. A lot of it depends on how I start my day, and that depends on how early I crawl out of bed. I need to fax in some paperwork to the state, I need to revise, again, my resume, I need to apply for work.

I need to spend time with visualizing and connecting to the things I want to accomplish. I need to get out and walk in the sunshine with just me and let as much of the nature as is around me in. Today, I sound needy. I am. But, I can change that.

"Do you want to get well?" Yes, I do! 

I'll go to bed tonight thinking about that statement and think of ways that I can help myself be well. Prayer, meditation, good food, exercise, lots of water,  letting people I love know I love them.  Those will all be excellent steps toward making tomorrow a much better day.

Today, the darkness descended and won the battle. Tomorrow, I'll engage it again with one idea in mind - winning.

Do YOU want to get well?