New Findings and Memories Through Trusting Support of Believers

This journey of recovery from PTSD of mine has by no means been a very easy road to travel. And I must say, one of the biggest obstacles I have endured was the stopping of all memory processing by a cabinet full of psych meds. Oh sure, these meds helped me so I wouldn’t have to face the truths and pains of my past, but they also took away a huge part of my memory while I was taking them.

At the end of 2012 I was involved in two car accidents. Therefore the state required me to take a sleep disorder test, thinking I must be falling asleep at the wheel. Prior to doing this, the neurologist asked me to be properly weaned off all my medications. After doing this, memories of my childhood began to come back. At this time I realized it hadn’t only been my childhood trauma years those meds made me forget, heck, I had even forgotten good times in my life and even my time as a soldier in the United States Army.

I spent time going back through my medical records and found I had been diagnosed with PTSD in the year 2006, an emergency intake social worker at the local community mental health had believed my life story, Amen. Though, the bummer of it, I had been turned over to a therapist, once again, that totally disregarded that diagnosis and he re-diagnosed me with Bi-Polar Disorder and through all those meds at me once again.

My only comforting thoughts for this happening once again in 2006 is that God must have felt it best for me not to process all the additional memories that came flooding back once I was off those psych meds in 2012. As these were some extremely painful memories that had tried to surface in 2006, that my therapist at that time did not believe evidently. And my guess is that God left it for me to process after my children were grown adults, so they did not have to suffer the consequences of my painful memories.

I was very fortunate and had found a Christian therapist in the year 2011 that had believed my life story. I had encounters with her back in 2006, as she was a member of the same church as I. She told me when I began to see her in 2011 that she knew I was a sufferer of PTSD and not Bi-Polar but couldn’t tell me before because I was not her client. Bless her heart. Her belief in me and in Our Great Father made this last leg of my Recovery Journey a thousand times easier than being with a therapist that did not believe my life story! Amen. I also began sharing my life story with my Pastor and his belief and support of me has made a tremendous difference in my recovery. There is nothing, if you ask me, more difficult when dealing with trauma, when you can’t even find a therapist to believe your mishaps in life. That can make matters even worse! I thank God every day for the Christian therapist I found and for my Pastor.

So I must say, I credit my faith and give all the glory to God for bringing such wonderful God loving people into my life. If it weren’t for them being faithful followers of Jesus Christ and me staying close to our God during the last year, I’m not even certain I would be here today. Praise the Lord!!

The Truth Shall Set You Free

I must admit; as of May 19, 2013; I have been totally set free by Jesus Christ.  It is in his word, John 8:32  And the truth shall set you free.  I am free of all bondages here by other human flesh, and all addictions of any sort.  Due to the mercy and grace of God, with my faith staying strong and becoming completely obedient to his laws, I have been set free.  This new life is just amazingly beautiful and so joyous to my heart.  I am just in awe over his glory, and the grace God has poured upon me.  I know the Holy Spirit can be seen in my face today, as I have seen it in others that I know.  What a beautiful, beautiful thing, just knowing the new glow can be seen by others who have experienced this transgression.  I am going to say it like my daughter Mindi Sue did on the 19th of May; “Mom, you are high on Jesus.”  Oh, she is so absolutely correct!!!  And, I shared with her and we just giggled and giggled, until our bellies hurt that evening, the good Lord had even worked through her, for me to see his light.  What an awesome way of being set free and of the good life, walking hand and hand with Jesus!!  I could not ask for any more than he has given me today!!!  I am flying high!!!  My health still isn’t quite back to where I’d like it to be, though I cannot really remember the last time I have actually complained.  I feel Jesus carries me when it gets too difficult for me to walk.  I am being blessed in every direction, and in every way and form.  Thank you, Jesus.

New Findings through Christ Our Lord and My Brother

I just wanted to post an update on where my faith and believe and obedience in Jesus Christ has led me to, as of today.  I feel that I have been totally set free, as it says in John 8:32, Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.  And with that, my abilities to grow in stronger in my faith and become more obedient, and to attempt to become more like Jesus Christ as he asked us to be; has come alive and active in me.  What a blessing!!  Without God, I know I would still be under the control of many demons and even worshiping other God’s and possibly practicing an addiction of some sort, and with do doubt breaking many of the laws,” The Ten Commandments,” that have been set in place by Our Great Father above.  I thank him several times a day for watching over me and at times definitely carrying me, so I can live with a heart of peace and joy, and forgiveness today.  My heart actually aches for whom I, for one, have taken much abuse from, knowing this person has got to be barely walking with that much sin on her shoulders, if she has not repented and given her life completely over to God.  I pray for her every day!!  Life is good, though I am experiencing many physical ailments presently in my life; which the medical field cannot find answers to why yet.  My guess is these could have been caused by the 12 years I spent on un-needed psych meds, as I have been free of all of those type of medications for approximately 9-10 months; properly weened by a trained psychiatrist, due to my new diagnosis of my Christian Trauma Therapist from 5th Reformed Church in Muskegon, Michigan; of PTSD.  Friends, I am floating on a cloud now, with no substances of any sort, approximately 1 1/2 years clean from marijuana, 9 1/2 from alcoholism, and most importantly 1 solid year of not being controlled or worshipping any other God’s before him!!!  Amen and Amen.  I will be posting more this evening, until then, please consider, looking up and drawing close to Our Great Healer, so you too can smell the flowers, or laugh about “cake balls,” like I was able to this morning, with my Pastor’s wife, Nancy Burmeister.  God is Good!!

My series of Memoirs has been put on hold.

I wanted to inform my friends and followers, that for the present time my series of Memoir writing has unfortunately been put on hold. I am awaiting some more answers from Our Great Father in Heaven and for the financing of my coach, Tricia McDonald; (which should be coming soon), so I can move forward with this in a very positive, faith based manner. I will inform you that my Audience of my Memoirs is to reach; the sexually and emotionally abused, those that are on a recovery journey or even any experience with any diagnoses of mental illness, substance abuse and alcoholics, those that have been abused by our Countries Psychiatric System, Suicide Survivors, spiritual believers and followers of Jesus Christ; this is to name a few off the top of my head. I will definitely keep you informed of when I will be getting back to my writings and moving forward with my coach, editor and publisher to be, Tricia McDonald.

With sincere thanks and with the love and trust of Our Great Father in Heaven, please stay tuned.

Love in Christ,
Mary Jackson.

I found this scripture, to be relative to my life; as a ridiculed Christian.

the same. 🙂

John 15:18-16:4

18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you. 21 They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me. 22 They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. 25 This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated me without cause.’

26 “But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. 27 And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry.

16 “I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith. 2 For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. 3 This is because they have never known the Father or me. 4 Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.

At first glance, this looks great. If anyone hates us, we have God on our side. The world hated Jesus as well. But it doesn’t necessarily work like that. We must be careful to pay attention to exactly what Jesus said and the context in which he was saying it. If we don’t want to misrepresent or misapply Scripture, we must be careful to pay attention to the context behind the words. Scripture has one meaning-the meaning that God and the author meant to convey. We cannot take their words and apply them without knowing the true meaning.

In this passage, Jesus is talking specifically to His disciples, His true followers, the ones who left everything they had, who gave up their old lives to have new lives with Christ. Do we really live this way today? If we did, the world would hate us. My favorite part of this passage is when Jesus tells His disciples that they do not belong to this world. He called them out of the world, and He calls us out of it as well. I absolutely love that because the things that go on in this world sometimes make me so sad. If we really had a heart like God’s, it would break our hearts to see the things that happen here. It would break our hearts to see people being used and abused and not being cared about or taken care of. I’m so glad we don’t belong to this world. We belong to our Savior and to our Father.

If we really lived like Christ did and like the disciples did, we would be hated by the world that we don’t belong to. And Jesus says we would even be treated worse that He was, because He is greater than us. As His servants, we are not greater than Jesus, our master. I wish I could say that I’m living out my faith enough to be hated for it. I think part of the issue is that at least in America, it seems like Christianity is the majority. But it’s not. Complacent Christianity is. Being “christian” will be accepted by the culture. Dropping everything you have to follow your Savior will not be. Would be we persecuted the way the disciples were if we live for Christ the way they did?

Jesus said all this to his disciples very soon before He was arrested and killed. He was preparing them for what the would endure after His death. But He reassured them, telling them that the Holy Spirit would be sent to testify about Jesus.

One of the things we need to be careful about is applying this verse to all situations where someone is hated or not agreed with. Jesus did not say that all people who are hated are doing right in the eyes of the Lord. He said to His true followers that the world would hate them. One of the major ways I’ve seen this verse used is when someone is being criticized by fellow believers, they use this verse to convince themselves that what they are doing is right and that they do not need to listen to listen to others or ask for prayer or Godly wisdom.

Right before this passage, Jesus commands His disciples to remain in Him and to love each other. I think that’s important to integrate into this idea as well. As followers of Christ, we need to love each other. The world will hate us, but we need to show love to each other. Therefore, I believe this verse should only be applied to being rejected by the world, not being disagreed with by fellow believers. However, we also have to keep in mind who is a true follower of Christ? It’s a fine line.

The main thing I got out of this passage is that I need to make sure that I am not loved by the world and that I do not belong to it. I would much rather belong to Jesus. What are your insights on this passage? How will you apply it to your daily life?

I will leave my answer in my Memoir.

My Old Life and Love for Softball, as well

Home Run Movie, coming out April 19th; produced by Carol Matthews

Togetherness

Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Think of ways to encourage one anoher to outbursts of love and good deeds. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25

Let’s stay close, as it not only takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to raise a family of Christians, as children of Our God.

Not a Coincidence, No Doubt

Be happy if you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God will come upon you. If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs. But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his wonderful name. 1 Peter 4:14-16

I came across this passage this evening. And Lord knows, I can count the ways that I have been ridiculed for being what some say is a “religious fanatatic.” God wanted to remind me of his privileges for being his follower, by having me read this tonight. Thank You Jesus!!

Today

Every day in the Lord, is a new day; full of everlasting promise.

My Christian Testimony

My Christian Testimony.