Tag Archives: Jesus

The Incessant Chatter

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It’s funny, I go about my life taking care of myself and my dogs.  I go to church and bible study and work in the kitchen to help prepare the communal meal every Sunday.  I have even taken a job looking after a 91-year-old woman a few hours a week and like doing it. 

My house is clean.  I have food of sorts in my house. I don’t owe anyone a debt and I pay my bills on time.  Most mornings I hike in the foothills with my dogs for over an hour to give us exercise and help my mental state.  My guess is that I would be called a highly functioning adult.

Yet I have this fairly constant whisper in the back of mind that I am going to kill myself.  It is something I think about many times a day.  Sometimes I shut the voice up with the promise, “OK, I’ll kill myself this fall.”  

While I care deeply about others I can’t get close to anyone. I guess that isn’t too hard to figure out since my husband killed himself two years ago.  My final arrangements have already been made and paid for. There are no funeral arrangements since I have no family or close friends.

My dogs are what really deter me emotionally.   Would my plans for their care happen as I planned or would they wind up in the pound, frightened and eventually put down?

Not desecrating the life God has given me with suicide deters me spiritually and intellectually.  I pray as deeply as I can and I study the Bible.  While I pray I feel close to God but the whispers sometimes continue even then.

It is my suspicion that the people who know me best never dream that I am thinking about suicide most of the time.  In fact sometimes the thoughts are so insistent that I can’t really focus on conversation.  But I put on an interested expression and let the other party talk and no one suspects.

Medication doesn’t work.  It makes it worse.  I frustrate the doctors and psychologists and they quickly lose interest since they really can’t seem to help.  How many times have I been to a therapist or shrink in the last year and a half?  Often their solution it to have the police pick me up and take me to the hospital for a psych evaluation and then I am released with a referral to see a shrink.  So now I don’t go to the doctor or the shrink.  

This post has been all about me.  I know there is a greater world out there and I hate the fact that I am so self absorbed.  I do care about the future of our nation, about the persecuted Christians throughout the world, about hunger and children dying.  In fact the hopelessness of these issues when I think of them keeps me from reading and listening to the news since it increases the chatter.

I don’t know what to do.

How to Melt a Heart of Stone

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The use of the Jesus Prayer began with the Desert Fathers in about the 5th Century.  Since then it has spread throughout the world. In Russia both monastics and lay people have prayed the Jesus Prayer for many centuries.  Some of them wandered the roads and forests while saying the Jesus prayer as a way to grow closer to God.  They lived in the countryside and people would give them a bit of food as a kindness and a blessing.  This has been a way of sanctification for many.

Eventually as a person persists in this prayer while living a holy life it is said that the heart prays the prayer at each breath even while asleep.

For me hiking has been a way to fight depression and suicidal thoughts and restore my connection with God.  I especially like praying the Jesus Prayer while I hike or walk.  It controls my wandering mind and brings it back to God.  It focuses the entire body and heart on God in one unified action.

Because when I am hike I get short of breath I simplify the prayer to:

Lord Jesus  (breathe in)

Have mercy (breathe out)

This provides a profound way to make hiking or walking a meditation on the key point of Christian life.  That we need God’s mercy  and that mercy was already given us through Jesus Our Lord.

The entire prayer which I pray when at home and I am not breathing hard is:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God  (breathe in)

Have mercy on me, a sinner (breathe out)

God promised in Ezekiel 36:26  that “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”  This Sunday at Liturgy our pastor, Father Nicolay Miletkov, talked of the effect of the Jesus prayer.  He said that each time we say the Jesus prayer it is like a drop of water dripping on our stony hearts.  And just as the constant drip drip of water on stone eventually wears down the rock, so our stony hearts begin to erode and to reveal the flesh and blood hearts that God created.  It takes many years of praying this deceptively simple prayer to wear away the stone that surrounds our hearts.

Having tried this prayer when I was a new Christian I wasn’t able to appreciate its power or its beauty.  Now that I am old and understand that I can do nothing of myself I am so grateful for this ancient tradition which transforms the simple act of breathing into prayer.

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Maybe It’s Not A Trial But It’s Sin

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I haven’t been blogging for a couple of months because of an intense indifference to life.

Wanting to care I can’t:

Keep busy they say

Pray more

You aren’t trying hard enough

So-and-so’s  life is much worse than yours

Why can’t you be more like other people?

If you loved God you wouldn’t feel this way.

They are so right.  So I keep busy; I hike, I drive a friend to and fro, I take a child to the zoo.

And I pray.  I ask God to take this terrible indifference from me.

Only then do strange tears come.

I cry so hard I can’t see the Bible to read.

I wish I knew why I cried.  If I did then maybe I could do something different.

As evening draws close and I swelter in the 82 degree house I find myself plotting how to kill myself.

No.  I say.  No.  I will not do it.

I wonder now is this a trial?

Somehow I don’t think so.  It must be the consequence of sin.

So I renew my cry to God.  Tell me my sin and I will repent.

I will shout it from the mountaintop so the world will know.

But he doesn’t answer me.

But I feel his presence.  What does he want?

The only thing I want is to give him that.

“Our Life Depends on The Kind of Thoughts We Nurture”

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Elder Thadeus

Last week, while hiking in the Sandia Mountains, my blood sugar fell to really low levels. I would guess it was under 50. I became really shaky and weak and while walking a trail that was full of small rocks, called scree, I fell several times. My feet would shoot out from under me and I fell on my tailbone and lower back. The low blood sugar was caused by eating insufficient carbohydrates before and during the hike. Normally I carry a candy bar with me and some nuts but this day I brought only the nuts.
I was so weak I didn’t know if I could walk out. I had several miles of treacherous switchbacks to go. Making it worse was that I had my dogs with me and I knew that if called for help the ambulance wouldn’t allow me to bring the dogs with me. The dogs would probably end up in the pound. I was unwilling to put them through that experience.
I started to panic as I considered all these dire outcomes. Then I thought of what Elder Thadeus said, “Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture.” My mind instantly cleared as I thought of all God’s promises in his Word. I rememered that he is always with me and the panic left. I was able to continue walking out. Although what should have been an hour and a half walk turned into a very painful 4 hours walk. I kept my head. I told myself that while it was extremely unpleasant to be so weak and fall so often, I could survive it. And I did. I offered my sufferings to Christ and thought about his thirst on the cross. Certainly my ordeal was nothing in comparison.
This experience made me think about having worked with a cognitive therapist in the past. The main idea of cognitive therapy seems intuitive: Thoughts precede emotions. So to heal the emotions change the thoughts. I never understood why this process didn’t seem particularly effective for me. Over time my thoughts got no less negative.
So why was I able to change my thoughts this time where I was unable to in the past using the tools of cognitive therapy? The key seems to be that without God, fear of the world and future events is pretty realistic. Only if there is a God who is intimately involved in my life can I trust that no matter what happens God is with me. Without the knowledge of God’s love and good will toward me changing my thinking is just a form of positive thinking with no basis in reality.
I know that God works all things for the good of those who love him. It isn’t that bad things don’t happen to those who love God but knowing that no matter what happens God will use if for both my good and the good of others is what enables me to push on through. My experience in the woods was different because I knew God was with me.
Where cognitive therapy didn’t help, now I am able to turn my thoughts to the things of God. I turn to his word and to his promises and these change the negative emotions because they are founded in what God has said and promised. I believe it because whenever I trust his word and promises he comes through for me in a way I could never have foreseen. So it is reasonable to trust him because it is not presumption it is relying on his Word.
God has been teaching me that as I think so I will be. If I allow myself to feel defeated or fear the future my life becomes a boiling pot of confusion and I cannot focus my mind. If at the first moments of fear I turn my mind to the things of God then my mind calms down and lets me pray I am able to take a reasonable course of action that God gives to me.

Hiking in New Mexico – Correct Blog Address

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Boo Is The Better Hiker

Sorry about the confusion. The addressof my new blog is http://www.newmexicohiking.wordpress.com
I created three blogs before I got this one set up properly. Used the address of one that didn’t work in my posting about the new blog.

Why am I Still Here?

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My Walk With God

The outlines of why I am still here are beginning to take shape. First of all, when my husband killed himself I had lost my faith in God and in his Christ. The slow descent into madness by my husband had filled me with a sense of failure and hopelessness. It has taken almost two years for God to restore my faith and for me to realize that I wasn’t the main character in this story. Neither was my husband. This is a story about God and his goodness to us.
At 70, the age I was when my husband died I could see no reason to go on. On some days it still seems like nothing so much as surviving one day after another. But now I know that God is on this walk with me. I can worship him and call upon him and he is there. His Word has become the center of my life in a way that it never was before. The Bible is alive with God’s voice speaking to me. He shows me the way, but only one step at a time.
When I wonder about my future: Will I get Alzheimer’s disease? Will I wind up alone with no one to visit in a nursing home? I just put it in God’s hands. If these things happen then God will take care of it. He will give me the courage to face it and he will face it with me so I don’t need to worry. And if to other people I seem to have no dignity, I will know that in the eyes of God I do have dignity, the dignity of trusting him.
When I was suicidal it was because I felt I couldn’t face the future. It was so bleak. But now I know that God is pleased to tell a story with my life and my obedience pleases him. Finally I have grown up enough to know that the esteem of man means nothing and the pleasure of God in my life freely given up for him is the only dignity I care about.
In the course of my husband’s illness, I lost financial security, social standing and the respect of many. But compared with what I gained, I along with Paul can say I count it as nothing compared to pleasure of the God whom I want to please.
So, to answer the question of why I am here I can say that it is because it pleases God to have me here. Maybe he can touch the lives of others through my life. I don’t know. But I do know that for now he wants me right where I am, doing what I am doing. The important thing is why I do it. And the only valid reason is that I do it for the love of God who loved me first.
I invite your comments on my journey through suicide to meaning. Please let me know about your journeys, they encourage me.

The Salinas Pueblo Missions of New Mexico

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Southeast of Albuquerque about 80 miles are the ancient Salinas Pueblo Missions. Off Route 55 the three major missions stand in silent tribute to their populations which were forced to flee due to drought and Apache incursions.
The churches in each of the ecologically sensitive pueblos were built in the early to mid 1600′s. These are places sacred to the indiginous people. They lived ecologically balanced lives that depended on less than 10 inchs of rain each year.

When the Franciscans arrived they were gentle and converted the people to love Christ. But they were soon followed by the Spanish king’s men who demanded more in tribute from the poor peoples. Coronado followed not far behind.

At last a several-year draught made life in the pueblos unsustainable and they fled to the Jemez and other areas to the south leaving the evocatively beautiful ruins where today the sound of the wind is all that is heard. To explore these gorgious ruins is to wonder what life in balance with nature must have been like. It is also to wonder if these magnificent and peaceful pueblo people might not be Christian today if not for the Conquistadors.

The cruelty of the Spanish Kings eded the natives conversion to Christianity. These people sang Gregorian Chant in Latin and built the churches in the pueblo. Most of the peoples converted. After the arrival of the King’s men and the draught they left behind their Christinity which they associated with the violence and rapaciousness they had experienced.

How Prayer Helps With Suicidal Thoughts

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Does God answer prayer about suicidal thoughts? Not in the way I wished he would. I wanted him to take away the anguish. I wanted him to stop the Whisperer when he was telling me to just go ahead and do it.

I imagine that Job felt pretty much the same. He also had to deal with friends telling him his problems were his fault. At least I didn’t have people sitting around telling me I am the cause of all my problems like poor Job. Or if I did I coud just leave. But Job had nowhere to go. His house was gone, his fortune was gone and his children who might have defended him were dead. His wife wasn’t on his side either. She just told him to curse God and die. Job was sitting on an ash heap which means he was in the city dump.

So, why pray when we are suicidal? First, to offer our suffering to God. He tells us we are to make up in our bodies that which is lacking in the suffering of Christ (Col 1:24). Now how could there be anything lacking in the suffering of Christ? There couldn’t be unless God intended to leave some aspect of redemption for us frail humans to make up for in our own sufferings. Therefore God is letting us participate in helping another person be saved or helped by our sufferings. Think of that. That puts my anguish in a different perspective. If my sufferings are somehow used by God to help some lost soul find his way to God then I will suffer more willingly.

Second, God allows us to go through trials and he does. Then suicidal thoughts are certainly a trial. To find out if my suicidal thoughts were a trial, the first thing I did was ask God if this suffering is because of sin. Each day I asked. I couldn’t just assume because they were yesterday that today my suffering is a trial. It may be. but It also might be caused by sin. Keeping a clear conscience with God is vital. I make sure I confess my sins every day and ask forgiveness. Then if I have suicidal thoughts I can attribute them to a trial by God. I have Abraham and Job as my heroes in this.

Finally our fidelity in trial gives God glory. This is hard to understand. In the Gospel of John, Jesus refers to his upcoming passion as giving glory to the Father. In Jn 21:19 Jesus refers to the future death of Peter, which was crucifixion, as giving glory to God. Job’s suffering without cursing God also glorified God. The glory is the faithfulness of the follower when there is no benefit for him, quite the contrary when everything seems to be against him and God seems distant.

So there are three reasons to endure the temptation to suicide. I found that I could just say no and the Whisperer was impotent. Praying helped me to endure the temptation. Once I understood that the temptation wasn’t punishment but it was a trial I God strengthened me to endure it.

Friend, don’t do it. Just get through the next hour, the next 5 minutes. Get out of the house. Go anywhere, call a friend. Send me your email with your phone number and I will talk with you. Pray and God will answer. He won’t necessarily take away the temptation but he will help you get through it.

Abortion and Child Abuse Are Connected

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There is an oblique relationship between adoption and my overall topic of suicide, so please stay with me on this. Child abuse is the link. My last post was about the link between child abuse and suicidal impulses. One of the arguments that pro-abortionists use is that an unwanted child is often an abused child. In my case that is true. My mother and father didn’t want me and I they abused me. However they didn’t know they didn’t want me until after I was born when they discovered I had brown eyes unlike my much beloved blue-eyed sister. (I could never understand why my mother married a brown-eyed man if she didn’t want a brown-eyed child). Oh well, go figure. With advances in technology parents will soon be able to abort based on eye color.

But my point is this. The answer to an unwanted child is adoption not abortion. But abortion advocates began working against adoption very early in their movement and have succeeded in making adoption a negligible option for a mother who can’t or doesn’t want to keep her child. Why? Because the movement true interest is in population control. And often the secret of that movement is that their real goal is in eugenics.

I ran a pregnancy counseling center and a maternity home in the 1990′s. It was privately funded. We were open six days a week and saw nearly a hundred women a week. In the 2 years I was executive director there was not one woman who would give up her baby for adoption. The usual response was that,” I wouldn’t let anyone else raise my child.” This was a direct quote from the sex education courses they took in school. In a delicate way we would basic respond, “you mean you would rather your child died?” and the answer was yes. The pro-abortion lobby still controls the agenda on adoption. Has child abuse decreased? No it has increased. Abortion has coarsened the attitude towards children since i5 has become common. There is one thing I am pretty sure about, if adoption were thriving in this country there would be far fewer abused children than there are today. Why? Because in general, adopted children are wanted children. At the pregnancy center and maternity home where I worked, 98%, of our customers were black. I understood concerns about preserving the culture of the child, but there were enough prospective black adoptive parents that our pregnant mothers could have ensured a black heritage to their baby. This smacks of genocide on the part of the sex-education movement.

The second reason that was given for not carrying a baby to term and letting it be adopted was that “it would ruin my figure.” This is the result of the devaluing of women that has occurred at the same time with the devaluing of children. The young girls and women we saw felt that they would never get a man if they had a baby because there figure would be ruined. Some were wistful at the baby they were losing but none the less felt they had no choice particularly with the boyfriend exerting pressure on them.

So I conclude that Christians have a difficult job ahead reconverting a nation to a positive view of adoption. It is good for children, for families, for people who can’t have babies and most of all for young women and girls who would know they gave their baby a chance. And might I add that it would be good for blacks.

Coping with Suicidal Thoughts

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Most people have had thoughts of ending their life.  When you are grieving the loss of someone you love, or when you are lonely or afraid, it is common to think of it.  But it is one thing to think about suicide and quite another to feel a compulsion to kill yourself.

Since my husband killed himself nearly two years ago, thoughts of suicide have been my frequent companion.  Several times these thoughts have resulted in my going to the hospital for evaluation.  Sometimes, but not always, I am also depressed when I feel this terrible compulsion to kill myself.  I call these compulsive thoughts of suicide the Whisperer because it feels like someone is urging me to kill myself.

I have worked out a strategy to handle suicidal impulses.   It isn’t a sure-fire solution but it does help.

First, I pray.  I can find comfort and assurance in prayer.  Reading the Bible and reading authors whose work I can trust also fall under this dictum of prayer.  I  find especially helpful a couple of books by Patrick Reardon, The Trial of Job and The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ.  Understanding that Jesus  was really human, that when he underwent temptation he felt tempted.  When Satan took Jesus into the desert at the beginning of his ministry and told him to throw himself off the mountain because God would save him, we know that Jesus was genuinely tested.  He wasn’t walking through it like playing a part in a film.  He felt the temptation.   This makes him a savior I can relate to.  If you search back through my other posts you will find that Job’s trials helped me to understand the impulse to kill myself as a trial by God.  God isn’t standing aside being repulsed by my urge to kill myself, he is loving me and giving me the spiritual strength to endure.

What if I can’t pray?  Then I ask the Holy Spirit to pray for me as described in Romans 8:26.  I also ask friends and fellow Christians to pray for me that God will comfort me and strengthen me.  Send me a comment asking for prayer and I and others who read this site will pray or you.  Not just once but every day.

Second, I do the things I love even though I don’t want to do them.  This takes tremendous will.  I love to hike and since I  live in New Mexico near the Sandia Mountains I am able to hike when I want.  It always helps.  I come back restored to who I really am.  Sometimes I go every day.  Just knowing that I can go hiking the next morning gets me through those terrible nights with the Whisperer.   I also take photographs when I hike and sometimes I  go out in the city to take photographs in the evenings when the Whisperer afflicts me.   Seeing through a camera lens changes my perspective and cleanses me of my own preoccupations with age, loneliness and fear.  In the evening  I go to places where people are shopping or eating in restaurants and take photos of faces and grouping that catch my eye.  Amazing how purifying that is.

Third,  I seek out people.  Since I don’t have many friends, I usually go to a restaurant where I know the servers and talk with them.  We just talk stuff.  None of them know my problem.  They tell me about their kids and problems with jobs and sick parents.  Somehow caring about another person helps me to forget myself.   It always takes an effort to get beyond myself but when I do I find it liberating.

Fourth,  Send me an email at msscholz@aol.com and I will respond as soon as I get it.  Let me know your telephone number if you want me to call you.  Maybe we can pray and talk and that will help.  If you don’t want to email me then call the national suicide hotline and they will connect you with local help.  The number is 1-800-273-8255.

Just remember, Friend, that if you can make it until the morning or for a couple of hours you will see things differently.   Whether you are lonely or afraid, abused or old.  Whatever the problem, it won’t go away but it can get better.  There are people who care.

I care and want  to help you.  I will pray with you, listen to you and give you a shoulder to cry on.  Just don’t take that final step.  You will be glad you didn’t and so will I and a lot of other people who read this blog.