What is my purpose, God?

Champions are Rarely Chosen from the Ranks of the Unscarred

"Crisis, pain, and suffering. These are our gifts from God. You can’t see it now, but that unimaginable calamity that you are facing is your greatest gift. It is in your darkest hour that the seeds of your greatest hour are planted." - Unknown

When God lays it on your heart to do something, Satan himself will do everything in his power to distract or prevent you from following through with those plans. This blog is a prime example. For the love of God, just let me write. Amen.

Instead of an official introduction and writing a saga about my life, I have decided to let God do the work through me. Lord knows I need all of the help that I can get. If you've come to this blog, I'm sure it was for a reason. Maybe to just be nosey and pry into my life or because you're genuinely interested in the content that I'm bringing to the table. Either way, thank you for stopping by! Before I begin, I pray that God uses me through this blog to reach others in ways that only He knows that they need. I pray that He gives me the wisdom and the words to embark on this journey that has been heavy on my heart lately.

Psychology, God, and Writing are three things that I hold close to my heart. When I say psychology, ultimately, I am referring to Mental Illness. I have always been intrigued with how and why the mind works the way that it does and the things that make up who we are as a person. I will forever pray that this blog will touch you in unimaginable ways. I believe that God has chosen me for such a time as this. He knows that I need this outlet infinitely more than you ever will.

To this moment, I don't understand why God hasn't healed me of my mental health issues. This is something that I battle with day in and day out. If He is God of the impossible and loves all of His children more than we could ever fathom, then why does He only bless some of us infinitely more than others? Also, I'm pretty certain that I am not the only one who is getting annoyed with the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason." As I say to my therapist, "What good reason could God possibly have that forces me to suffer from mental illnesses every single day of my life?" Yes, I said "illnesses", because I guess He figured that just one wouldn't suffice.

Throughout my entire childhood and into my youth, I always felt different. I remember being extremely shy and quiet (yeah, I can't believe that either). I also had a heart that didn't compare to any other child that I knew. No one else seemed to care about the things that were huge issues in my eyes and empathetic was my middle name. Unfortunately, at the age of 34, I can say that only a portion of that has changed. Use your imagination and guess which portion I'm referring to. If I had the ability to insert a laughing emoji here, I most definitely would. *lol*

After countless visits to different therapists and psychiatric physicians, I finally had some answers. To say that these past 18-years have been difficult would be an understatement. Four therapists and approximately thirty different medication trials later, here I stand...or sit. Exhausted and defeated don't even begin to describe the way that I feel and have felt throughout all of this. In my heart, I feel that I finally have an accurate diagnosis for each of my struggles. Those being, Bipolar Depression, Anxiety/Panic Disorder, OCD, ADHD, and PTSD. I'd like to believe that the bus stops there but I am not going to get my hopes up.

Through It All, I have tried my hardest to remember God's promises and that He has already won this fight. I attempt to remind myself that God knew exactly what I was going to go through in life and every battle that I would face before I was even a thought. As Jeremiah 1:5 says, "I knew You before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born, I set you apart." As a little girl, I recall many times that I would pray to a God that I wasn't even sure existed. As an adult, I still believe that those prayers that I spoke as a little girl, are what got me through my childhood. I will forever be thankful for my hometown church and Vacation Bible School, which taught me about a man who loved me unconditionally. His name is Jesus.

Living with mental illness, I often find it difficult to not get discouraged or wander astray when I constantly feel as if I will never feel better mentally or physically. In these times, God becomes the primary center of my anger, considering He has the ability to take all of this madness away. It has taken me a very long time to admit that I get angry with God, but I honestly feel that admitting my anger towards Him needed to happen. Ultimately, anger is an emotion that was given to us by the One who created us.

Oftentimes, I forget, and even doubt, that God loves me, has a purpose for my life, and a reason for my pain. I mean...I am 34. Couldn't He have given me a hint by now? As a Christian, I have felt and still feel wrong or even guilty for getting angry and questioning God's love for me. When I am in the present moment, I feel as if God is not working in my life or sorting out these chemical imbalances in my brain. In His defense, I don't think I would want the job of sorting out my chemical imbalances either. *lol*

Around the time that I was praying about beginning this blog, I started to research reasons as well to why people feel that God does not heal mental illness. Two explanations really caught my attention and have since stuck with me. The first explanation is that God does not heal us because it is through our pain that we tend to cling to Him. Especially during difficult and painful times, He wants us to draw near to Him. The second explanation is one that I struggle to comprehend. This is that God has a purpose for our pain.

As I look back over my life, I realize that God truly has had a purpose for every single ounce of pain that I have experienced. These experiences will be shared in my blog posts in His time. If God truly has a purpose for this mental suffering, what is it? That is what is hard for me to grasp. Also, I have no idea why He sees me fit for this position. *lol* Whatever His purpose is for me in this life, I hope and pray that I am able to fulfill it.

As I close this entry, I'd like you to know that this entire blog was complete happenstance. A stranger on Tik Tok who struggles with mental health issues asked his guests what they do to help themselves heal or deal with their struggles. I replied by saying that I love to write and have been wanting to start something pertaining to Mental Health Awareness. He is the one who encouraged me to start a blog. Around that time is when I admitted to my therapist that my struggle with my mental health has made me very angry with God. I knew wholeheartedly that I could not be the only one who battles with this. With that, I prayed about whether I should create this blog and if so, for God to give me a name for it. My blog name, "Through It All", came to me as I was listening to the song, "It Is Well", by Kristene DiMarco. In that moment, I realized that He is in fact, the One who sees me Through It All.

"For God to use our painful experiences, we must be willing to share them." - Rick Warren