Urgent See

Depression makes its rare emergence.  No! It isn’t rare at all.  Its a resurgence.  It has only been awhile (a long while when presenting mental illness). It was just off in hiding somewhere in the far reaches of darkness.  I had a good 3 years without it.

I have enjoyed the freedom in the light…  I’ve been walking in the land of the living…  I wasn’t expecting it to be lurking from behind to encounter it once again.  In actuality, it decided to confront me head on within non-threatening circumstances in the presence of others I had not struggled with before and entered quickly into my mind overtaking, next into my heart sinking, and then into my soul threatening.  I thought it had been beaten and overcome once and for all.

Yet here I am facing it, dealing with it, and experiencing it.  This time I am not succumbing to its power or should I say how it can devour strength mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, and spiritually.  This sudden attack was unusually different and less debilitating.

I decided to stay calmer.  I let it happen, but I didn’t give up hope…  I can see the forest through the trees this time.  I was lost in the forest of fears and running into tress it was so dark and devastating before.  I am more aware of it’s feeling of negativity and of heavy weight, but even more aware beyond it and focused on my surroundings…  I am not caving in and I am not withdrawing myself into its cave of darkness. I still have responsibilities to love and care for my family, to work and provide for them, to eat for nourishing my body, and to care for myself in being patient and finding times to rest…

I am aware of HIS light, HIS love, and HIS care for me that I have been able to press on with it, walk onward with it, persevere with it, and endure with it.  Yah, its present, but it doesn’t own me like it once did.  I don’t wear it like an all encompassing shawl blinding my eyes until withdrawing inward self-destructively or as a trench coat in a torrential thunderstorm dragging me down like I once did.  I don’t fester in loathing toward beating myself up like I once did.  It doesn’t overwhelm me toward being suicidal like it once did.

I allow it to teach me where and how I need to grow…  It causes me to stop and evaluate how I am progressing and what needs correcting.  It is making me more humble, working in me maturity, developing within me steadiness, causing me to take it a day at a time, and refocusing me on priorities I want to have at this time in my life…

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like it.  If GOD wants to use it in me for good however, then so be it.  I will wade through the waters, to get to a desired destination.  I will let it run its course, a river I won’t drown in this time…  I will let it set afire, flames that won’t destroy me this time…  I will be molded as clay into a more useful human being in HIS hands…  I will live on and let go of that which I don’t need to hold onto anymore rising again above any ashes that may remain…  I will walk by faith and not by sight…  I will walk in hope with HIS Light…  I will walk in love with HIS might broken and contrite…

So with this depression’s emergence, what emerges is more faith, hope, and love to carry onward…  So with this depression’s resurgence, what resurges is more grace, mercy, and compassion for those who are struggling as well in their own battles in being tried and tested…  With the emergence and resurgence, there is an urgency to help others in need…  There is always a lifeline I hold out for you…  Keep fighting and overcoming until light overcomes the darkness…  for you to see life again anew…  No fight is ever wasted…  So perseverance and endurance is better tasted… once you’ve made it through it all and survived… armed with experiences to now thrive and to truly “be there” for others who need a steady and faithful hand to walk with them back into the land of the living…

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  Isaiah 43:2

 

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Wounded

Before having insurance and beginning my career in the teaching profession, I was playing basketball and tore my ACL.  I was on crutches for awhile.  When I got my first teaching job and a coaching position, I limped with pain.  I continued to pray during the school year for GOD to heal me. What else was there to do anyway? I didn’t give up hope.  I was in pain for quite awhile with no relief in sight.  After 7 months, GOD finally answered and took my pain away.  I was able to walk with free unhindered motion again.  There were times my knee would hurt and I’d remember GOD’s mercy and thank HIM for it.  HE then healed it again and I felt no pain.  This has been a running theme in my life with this wound in my knee.  When it hurts, I thank GOD for HIS mercy and then HE takes away my pain.  Several years ago, I thought of getting surgery on my knee to finally get it fixed.  After getting the MRI done on it, the doctor showed my old ACL injury.  Then he showed me I had a new injury on top of it.  You see, I played basketball again being careful with jumping because I learned that my bad cholesterol was high and I needed to exercise again.  So my thoughts were it’s either my knee or my heart that I prioritize.  I chose to strengthen my heart.  I began exercising at a gym and playing basketball again.  The new injury is a bucket holder meniscus tear along with my ACL tear.  The cost of surgery was very high and I opted for not getting it.  My family’s needs came first and foremost.  I haven’t gotten the surgery to this day and walk around with two wounds in my knee that may never get fixed here on earth.  Ever so often, the pain returns and I thank GOD for HIS mercy in my life and the pain once again dissipates even though the wounds are still present.

My wife has had two strokes in the last year.  The numbness to parts of her body have gone away.  She can still talk.  Sometimes the words don’t come as fluently and finding the right word may be difficult.  She gets headaches in parts of her brain that were affected by the strokes.  She is depressed.  She is depressed because she cannot do as much as she once did, think like she once did, be a part of working and supporting the family more, and being hopeful for a better day is challenged.  Thoughts of what if I do not get well again?  CT scans, MRI, EKG, other heart tests, and blood tests have all come back normal.  However, she doesn’t feel normal.  This has been difficult for her to cope with.  Suicidal thoughts have been present off and on, but she will never commit suicide. To her it is not an option.  I am thankful that GOD provided a job for online teaching that I can do to support our family more so now that she is unable to work along with my teaching job I have in public school.  She has been wounded by unexpected health struggles now.  There may not be an explanation that we find out about for why?  Why did this happen?  What must she do to get back on her feet?  Will she regain abilities again one day?  We will continue to pray and trust GOD through this…  She’s wounded and there may not be complete healing.  At least for now.  In the future?  I hope so, I really do!!  In Heaven, yes!!!…

Last Sunday while I was teaching online at night, I heard my dog barking emphatically.  I kept on teaching for this was my job to do.  When I got a break, I went to tell my two oldest kids to check on him.  I knew something wasn’t right.  I had to get back to teaching.  My kids didn’t go check on our dog.  When teaching was through, I went myself to check on him and he was bleeding at various parts of his left front leg.  We have a metal paneled fence and it has a 2 or 3 inch gap at the bottom.  My initial evaluation was that he got his leg caught in the fence and there were two places with jagged edges and that is why he had multiple cuts.  My wife and daughter took him to an emergency vet center an hour away.  The Vet said that there were definite puncture wounds from another dog.  As I rethought what happened, I believe another dog was able to grab a hold onto his leg with its teeth and pulled his leg under the fence biting and yanking on it.  His leg rubbed up against the metal fence panel’s bottom edge as well as the two places that had jagged points.  The Vet had to amputate one of his toes, because of the trauma done to it.  He was put on antibiotics and pain meds.  A cone was placed around his neck to keep him from bothering the sutures put in to close the wounds and allow for quicker healing to take place.  Well, the cone wasn’t long enough for him not to lick his wound where the toe was amputated.  I called the E.R. vet clinic today to ask about him licking this wound where it is still raw.  They told me that, he needed another cone to wear so he doesn’t keep licking it or it won’t heal.  I took him an hour away to get a new cone for him and to see if anything else needs to be done.  The vet came to tell me that she would prescribe a stronger antibiotic and that she would not be able to close the wound due to there not being enough skin to put sutures in to cover it.  She said the wound will have to heal on its own.  She told me to run water on it like hydrotherapy for 10 minutes and put an ointment on it once a day.  He was so dependent on me this week to show him love and comfort.  He was definitely traumatized and needed the attention and care.  He was not happy tonight with the cool water running over the wound.  He looked at me differently than the previous times of feeding him and letting him drink holding the bowl up to him for easier access with the cone around his head hampering him a bit.  He hates the cold for he is short haired and the cold water made him shiver.  It’s winter and he doesn’t like being outside.  He was coming in at night to stay in the kennel every night before all this and now he stays inside most of the day too in order to rest and recover.  Hopefully the wound heals on its own and he will walk easier again even without one of his toes.

Sometimes we experience wounds that do not fully heal here on earth.  Some wounds may take a long time for healing to occur and we have to wait…  Some wounds have to heal on its own and there will be a loss involved that needs to be grieved.  We will enter Heaven with scars for sure and only be completely healed there…  Even so, I will keep praying for more healing now and all my days that I live…  Keep fighting and overcoming even when life isn’t fair and things aren’t going the way you expected…

If you’ve been wounded in any way, trust the LORD for your healing HE will give here or in Heaven…  Life is a battle so let HIM help you if you’re a wounded soldier (emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually)…

 

Anew

A new day dawns

A previous year gone

A new year begun

A studious you -will run

A new song sung

An obedience to YOU clung

A new heart and spirit in the SON

A serious vision with more freedom among

A new path to walk along

A mysterious way to belong

 

Come to ME

 

How are you?  Really!?…  I pray for you…  I’m here for you!!… Sincerely…

How am I thought of?  I wonder.  How am I seen?  Maybe real and genuine.  Maybe off base and peculiar.  How do I come across?  Maybe human and down to earth.  Maybe human and troubled.  Maybe human with a spiritual connection to GOD and Heaven…  Probably a little of each component that makes up my whole being with much left unexplored and unknown…

My preferred way of communication is poetry.  If you have any familiarity with my site, it is engulfed by poems.  Some are simple and to the point and you understand where I’m coming from.  Some are complicated and confusing and you don’t understand what I’m talking about.

The simple and to the point come from a heightened awareness of GOD, HIS love, and times of peaceful recollection, remembrance, and restoration of HIS work in my life…  A tranquil day in the sun…  The complicated and confusing come from a darkened depression turned to mental illness in processing the lonely, anxiety ridden, and fearfully prolonged moments of a life trying to manage everything after being suicidal and making an actual attempt. A chaotic storm in the middle of the darkest night.

Maybe I need to write more like this; acquainting with you in paragraph form, thought by thought sequence, conversation style, letting you in more so to know some of my soul, to know me as a fellow human living this life to overcome and be a fighter still pressing on no matter what comes my way; facing it head on with courage and strength -even though I’m weak…

I have tried to convey faith, hope, and love in writing on this here blog to inspire, encourage, and support those struggling with depression, mental illness, abuse, and/or suicidal thoughts…  Has it made a difference for anyone?  I don’t really know.  I hope so…  not for my benefit, but for theirs and for yours…

My faith is in JESUS who is my Savior, my Redeemer, my KING of kings and LORD of lords…  My hope is in GOD the FATHER for grace and mercy in times of need…  My love works in and through me by HIS Spirit…  My faith is that you find faith in HIM too…  My hope is that you will hope in HIM too…  My love for and from HIM is for you to find HIS love too…  Faith, hope, and love remain…  And most prominently love is greater than all… And most assuredly love never fails…  HIS lovingkindness endures forever…  HIS mercy endures forever…

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.  Luke 6:45

Why do I talk so much about JESUS and spiritual things?  After what HE’s miraculously done with my fallen and broken life, how can I not speak of HIM who overflows my heart and sustains my life…  My life has been radically changed by GOD’s love for me and has made an eternally positive difference all because of JESUS…  So I include HIM in all that I say in some way… Maybe there are those who are turned off by this.  I don’t know.  Maybe there are those who haven’t experienced HIS love and care as of now up to this point, thus being foreign to them and unknown. Maybe there are those who feel let down or abandoned by GOD and blame HIM for all that is wrong in their life.  Maybe there are those who just don’t know what to think or feel about all this.  Is GOD real?  If HE is, will HE help me?  Will HE be there for me?  Will HE see me through the darkness and hard things in this life?  Will HE not abandon me to myself and all that is within that consumes and drowns me?

All of the answers to these questions are “yes” in HIS timing and way…  Now will you only trust HIM and believe… If you do, your life will change and you will find new strength and purpose for a future and a hope… If you do, then you open yourself up to HIS help, to HIS forgiveness, to HIS love, and to HIS comfort and care…  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us… Ephesians 3:20

GOD wants you to come to HIM, to know HIM, to make HIM known, and to love you and through you show love to others;  saved and found by JESUS… “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’  Acts 17:24-28

These truths you can believe, trust, and build your very life upon… Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Timothy  1: 15-17

Are you ready to begin a new journey into freedom by HIS grace and mercy at work in your life?  HE will be redeeming your past, restoring your present, and replenishing you onward into the future and a hope HE has prepared since the beginning before you were even conceived in your mother’s womb and born to face the challenges and brokenness of life moving forward with faith to believe and trust, with hope as an anchor for your soul, and with love HE pours into you by HIS Spirit to now and forever love HIM and love others too…  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  Matthew 22: 37-39

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34

Have you ever wanted someone to be your friend always and forever?  To be there in the most dark and difficult times?  To be there going through what you’re going through? To never have to be alone?  To bring you to a safe and secure place providing for all your needs?  JESUS meets that need and desire…  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:18

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Deuteronomy 31:6

He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” —Hebrews 13:5

 

How are you?  Really!?  I pray for you…  I am here for you!!…  Sincerely…

Jeff Watts

Dreams

Dreams birthed yesteryear

Still hold dear

Dreams may come true

Because they include You

Dreams keep future alive

May be why I survived

Dreams anew arrive

Guide inner drive

Dreams expand purpose

Vision seen of service

Dreams bigger reach out

Greater love teach about

Dreams beyond imagination

Go forward toward elation

Dreams forged in isolation

Deep within during tribulation

Dreams You will do

Use me in at least a few working through

Dreams of past to present to future connect

All because You take broken pieces to resurrect

Dreams according to Your will select

For those most in need You direct

Dreams of Salvation You will redeem

For anyone’s life who accepts Your dream

Dreams of turning lives around

Ask and you receive that you may abound

Dreams of rescue that will astound

Seek and by HIM you will be found

Dreams of relationship with GOD renown

JESUS knocks with gentle sound

Dreams you will open your heart’s door

Let HIM in and HIS love impart to adore

Dreams to follow HIM upon the waves at sea

Become the person you always wanted to be

Dreams to follow HIM ashore where He will restore

Become the person you always hoped for 

Dreams to follow HIM all the more

Become the person HE won’t ignore

Dreams to remember HIM on the cross 

You who HE came to die for no longer lost

Dreams do come true in JESUS

All you have to do is believe and trust

Dreams you did not know exist

HE gives what’s missed 

Dreams inspired by GOD persists

HE looks for vessels willing to enlist

Yet

 

Salvation believed

Inspiration received

Adoration achieved

Emancipation relieved

Captivation conceived

 

I may be quiet

Yet 

My mind is thinking of You and all that is Thine

 

I may be silent

Yet

My heart is beating for and with You together to dine

 

I may be resting

Yet

My body is needing Your touch so kind

 

I may be calm

Yet

My soul is yearning for You to restore all that is mine

 

I may be tranquil

Yet

My spirit is awaiting for You to refill within that I may shine

 

I may be of few words

Yet

I can’t thank You enough from deep inside

 

I may be very tired

Yet

I come to You for You within to reside

 

I may not be meditating on Your words often

Yet 

I want to hide them in my heart to always abide

 

I may be depressed

Yet

I continue on in faith, hope, and love so above it again will I rise

 

I may not have that look of joy

Yet

I have Your peace surpassing all understanding guarding my heart and mind

 

I may rarely laugh

Yet

I am serious with prayer and fighting for our family and others each night

 

I may not see You with my eyes

Yet

I believe by faith to please You with hope to no longer deny and love even when life goes awry

 

I may have questions

Yet

I trust You even if I never get answers to why

 

I may still have anxiety and fear at times

Yet

I will walk humbly, seek justice, and love mercy laying down pride

 

I may still await dreams to come true

Yet 

I will let the outcomes that from Your hands in Your plans will decide

 

I may wander some though wiser

Yet

I will learn to walk with You beside

 

I may not like Your discipline in my life

Yet

I discern You love me and I must die to self as You lead and guide

 

I may be weak

Yet

You are my strength and in You I find a Refuge in which to hide

 

I may think too much of past failure

Yet

I will do my best to forget what is behind, press on to run so as to win the prize, continue to fight the good fight with grace and mercy supplied

 

I may not be where I need to be at midlife

Yet

I will learn to do right with Your Word in me applied

 

I may not always be pleasing in Your sight

Yet

I have come so far by Your power and love at work in me comprised

 

I may not have many friends

Yet

I know in You I can always come to confide

 

I may not have overcome to be more than a conqueror

Yet

I will fix my eyes on You until I have arrived in Your arms open wide

 

I may not be mature

Yet

I trust You that I will come forth as gold tried and purified

 

I may not be ready to take on more with ministry

Yet 

I wait on You to work within me continually until qualified

 

I may have stumbled more numerous than I’d like to admit

Yet

I have always turned back to You, called on Your name, and on You alone relied

 

I may have come close to a tragic end

Yet

I have known Your miracle and healing ways that have surprised

 

I may have to go through another episode I really don’t want to face

Yet

I have come to know You are faithful to respond to my cries until it will subside

 

I may have enemies that for my hurt and end have come against

Yet

I know GOD works it all for my good despite how they may undermine

 

How

How can

An answer to YOUR call

Turn to pride before a fall

As confidence in YOU

Turns to breaking me in two

With strength and no fear

Turns to fear again so near

Full of the Spirit in sweet release

Turns to anxieties that increase

YOUR armor all around as a protective hedge

Turns to my life teetering on the edge

By faith moving forward

Turns to relapse stepping backward

In YOUR perfect love secure

Turns to depression stuck and insecure

 

How can

I return to answer YOUR call

Turn and submit to purposely fall

Face down yielding my life to YOU anew

Turn in brokenness to YOU be true

My strength (not my own) rests in YOU to bring breakthrough beyond the fear

Turn to acknowledge (not anything I’ve done) that YOU have brought me this far as I draw near

Refreshed in the Spirit freed from fear; returns (the surpassing all understanding) peace

Turn to give you thanks (Your compassion is beyond understanding) for a renewed life’s lease

Continue to put on YOUR armor as a protective privilege

Turn to surrender all my life to honor, glorify, and praise YOU my pledge

By faith in humility and understanding move forward

Turn to remember HIS grace in my walk and to love HIS mercy when feeling backward

In YOUR perfect love again secure

Turn to YOU daily, deny myself, and carry my cross to be pure