Trust & Obey

These are hard words to live by, and I have to keep repeating this to myself every day, almost as if it has become my mantra. The Zyprexa has made some significant difference in my mood stabilization and I’ve been weaned down on my Geodon from 80mg in the morning and 240 mg in the evening to 80mg/80mg. I’m still taking 200mg of Lamictal once in the morning and the other at bedtime along with 20mg of Zyprexa at bedtime and 2mg of Klonopin three times a day and Ambien CR at night. Throw that in with my Nexium and my two asthma drugs and you’ve got a good idea of how many medications I have to be on (Oh, yeah, and there is my Vitamin B-12 shot that I give to myself every month—I discovered, even though I had been a junkie for 20 years shooting up speedballs, giving myself am IM shot was more intimidating that popping a vein!)

Being in the Word everyday has given me something to hold on to. That goes back to this header of trust and obey. I know that God has a plan for each of us; for me all I can say is that I am to be obedient right now as I have not discerned what that plan may unfold.

I have written to a local Christian radio station asking if they needed any volunteers that could use me a couple of hours a week and on Saturdays and a means of tithing my time and being around a strong group of believers. As I’ve indicated with past entries, I have no real friends. If this radio station decides that they can use my help, this may be a venue I can use to build my friendship base. I wrote both the program director as well as the promotions director and I am looking forward to their response. I will admit to feeling someone disappointed if their reply indicates that they already have enough volunteers.

I need to get out of the house. It truly has become my castle without a drawbridge and I am determined to do something about it. If they can’t use me, I’m not sure where I could spend my energy. I though about Meals on Wheels, but that will eat up what precious gas I can barely afford to put into my car. Staying at home and isolating is not a good thing for me. I wish there were more singles in my church that would be able to get together on some type of schedule just to go out as a group and have some fun, but from what I can tell, most are already coupled. That’s OK with me; it just eliminates one possible option. I have made some wonderful friends at the church, but it is a different component of friendship when I am single and they are coupled.

One thing I have felt God really moving in my heart is my unwillingness to give up my identity as a lesbian, albeit celibate. It truly has become a situation where I am following the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. I am not allowing God to work through me to change what needs to be changed. I want to be cleansed from the inside out and I can’t help but feeling that my adamant refusal to give up that identity is getting in the way of God being able to finish the work he has begun in me. I just want my own life not to get in the way of what God surely has as a great and mighty plan in store for me.

I do worry what the enemy has in mind. I know what happened the last time I made this type of decision. I ended up in the hospital because I was suicidal. And I will admit that I have faced that this time around as well, but since adding the Zyprexa, my mood has become much more stable. I have to be ever vigilant to how the enemy works through my weaknesses and exploits them for the furtherance of his cause. I have to believe that if the enemy can use my bipolar for evil, can’t God use it for good? This is where my faith must step in. I have to believe that if I do trust and obey—hold on to all that I believe—I will be delivered from this miry clay. That’s doesn’t necessarily mean that I will no longer have bipolar, but it may mean that I will be in remission and be able to work with it successfully. I have been there once before. What’s to say I won’t be there again?©2007