Reasons To Live
Stories
Vision Stories
True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles
And the unclean spirit convulsed him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed.... (vv. 26-27a)
Saturday, April 30, 1999, started out as a great day. I felt cheerful and full of energy, a welcome change from the gloom and depression I'd felt the week before. After catching up on some neglected housework, I went shopping for bridesmaids' dresses with my good friend who would soon be marrying my best guy friend. The excitement of the upcoming wedding had us giddy. All the planning and romance and remembering my own wedding nine years earlier made me miss my husband. He'd been putting in long hours on second shift and our weekends were usually so full that we barely had time for each other. I was really looking forward to getting home and spending some time with him.
It was so disappointing when I got home and he told me he'd already made plans to go watch a hockey game with one of his friends. I was enraged when he didn't come home at 10:00 like he'd promised. The next six hours I went through cycles of depression, worry, anger, and rage. When he finally came home, at 3:00 a.m., he said he and his friend had been having a long talk, and he announced he was leaving me. He could no longer tolerate my unpredictable moods and, although I'd been working on improving myself for a very long time, he felt that in some ways very little had changed.
We talked for about an hour, mostly me begging him not to leave me and saying I would get better. Then he went to bed, leaving me alone. I felt my spirit sucked out of my body like water from a drain suddenly unclogging. The darkness from the week before returned in full force. I believed that I was entirely hopeless and decided that everyone would be better off if I were dead.
I began my suicide plan by finding the sharpest knife in the house. I then checked the pulse lines on both my forearms and marked the major arteries with a pen. I decided which wrist to cut first, and that I would do this on my back deck, because I didn't want to leave a stain on my beige carpet. Then I began writing a suicide note, but it occurred to me that if I left a note, my husband would probably destroy it and no one would know the truth. So I decided to call my sponsor and leave my final message to the world with her. When I called, I got her answering machine and she didn't pick up. I felt it was because she didn't care. In reality, she wasn't in town. So I called my best guy friend, who got up to take my call at about 4:30 a.m.
I told him I was calling to say good-bye. He asked where I was going. Then I proceeded to tell him of my plan and asked him to make sure I got a proper funeral and that everyone knew it was my husband's fault that I died. He tried desperately to talk me out of it. He reminded me of all I had going for me: two wonderful kids, a nice car, a beautiful house, so many friends who truly loved me. But none of that mattered to me. I finally told the truth about how I felt inside. It seemed like every time I felt alive and happy, a dark cloud would pass over me and stay with me for two weeks. I was tired of living that way, and felt as if no one would ever love me because of it. He suggested that I might have something else wrong, some sort of mood disorder. This only strengthened my resolve to kill myself. It was bad enough being an addict. I certainly didn't want to be a mentally ill addict, a double social stigma! After about an hour and a half of this, he finally said, "Well, if that's what you really want to do, go for it. But you realize that your husband will probably find someone else who was just like you were before you got clean, and that woman will get to live in your house and raise your kids. If it were me, I'd get a lawyer and make his life a living hell!"
Oddly enough, by tapping into my rage, he saved my life. At 6:30 that morning, the sun began rising, the birds began singing, and I could smell the apple blossoms on my trees. The presence of life around me gave me the strength to hold on for one more day.
Later that morning, my very worried sponsor called me. I told her that I was no longer planning to kill myself and let her know the truth about what had been happening with my mood swings, something I'd kept secret for years. She agreed with my other friend, that it sounded like a mood disorder and that I should put in an emergency call to my therapist as soon as we hung up. She also asked me to write a list of reasons to live and afterward begin a Fourth Step to describe all I'd been hiding. (Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.) She would be moving out of state the following weekend, so we decided I would do my Fifth Step with her that coming Friday. (Step 5: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.)
I wrote furiously, and by Friday I had about twenty pages, double sided, of my moral inventory. The Fifth Step with my sponsor took about four hours. We cried, prayed, and even laughed together. When it was over I felt emotionally drained, but the weight of carrying around my secret was gone. It had been confirmed earlier that week that I did have a mood disorder, called bipolar type II, rapid cycling. With this confession and medical help, I was back on the road to recovery.
Step 6 is "We became entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Mental illness is a medical condition, not a defect of character. Regardless, it didn't take me long to become entirely ready to ask God for help to rebuild my life.
Sunday, May 8, one week after my breakdown, was Mother's Day. It was also the day my husband decided to move out for awhile to get his head straight and make a decision about our marriage. That morning he went golfing. When he returned, he began packing while I went to a meeting. After I came home, he left. At first I felt incredibly alone. Then I remembered that God would always be with me.
I moved on to Step 7, "We humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings." I took that huge Fourth Step I had written out, and, without even looking at it, put it in a large coffee can. Then I dumped an almost full bottle of charcoal fluid on it, placed it on top of my grill, and set it on fire. I came into the house and lit the unity candle from my wedding and placed it behind me. I watched the huge flames from the coffee can through the patio door as I prayed and meditated. The small flame from the unity candle reflected in the glass. At times the flames from the can reached over four feet high. It burned for over forty minutes. The whole time, I asked God to reveal his will for me and to help me become whole again, regardless of what would happen to my marriage. When the flames finally went out, and the smoke cleared, I blew out the candle and went to bed.
The next morning, after I got the kids off to school, I went out to my deck to remove the coffee can and scatter the ashes from the burned paper. The coffee can was charred black inside and out. Everything in it had turned to white ash. Everything except one small scrap of slightly charred paper. Chills ran down my spine and my gut filled with fear. This was impossible! God was leaving me with something. Whatever it was, I didn't want it, and I ran back into the house. I paced circles in my living room as I prayed to remind God that I wanted him to take all of it away. Suddenly, I was filled with an incredible peace. I walked back outside and removed the scrap of paper from the can. It read: Reasons To Live:
My kids
My spiritual journey is not complete
It would be an insult to my God not to complete my life in his time
Awestruck, I put the paper back in the can. Tears streamed down my face as I felt the healing power of the Holy Spirit enter my heart. Just then, my sponsor's husband stopped by to see how I was doing. He was back in town to pick up another load of their things, and she'd asked him to check on me. When he saw my tears, he assumed I was upset and asked if he could do anything. I told him he'd just walked in on a miracle and took him to the back deck. I explained the ritual of the night before and asked him to read the surviving scrap of paper. After reading it, he collapsed to his knees and began sobbing, thanking God for allowing him to witness his work.
Others stopped by that day and were also shown the paper in the can. That evening, I scattered the ashes and disposed of the can. But that one little scrap of paper remains with me to this day, sheltered in a glass frame with an apple blossom. Whenever people tell me they don't believe in miracles, I show them mine and ask them if it could be anything but.
Thank you, God, for your wondrous works.
Saturday, April 30, 1999, started out as a great day. I felt cheerful and full of energy, a welcome change from the gloom and depression I'd felt the week before. After catching up on some neglected housework, I went shopping for bridesmaids' dresses with my good friend who would soon be marrying my best guy friend. The excitement of the upcoming wedding had us giddy. All the planning and romance and remembering my own wedding nine years earlier made me miss my husband. He'd been putting in long hours on second shift and our weekends were usually so full that we barely had time for each other. I was really looking forward to getting home and spending some time with him.
It was so disappointing when I got home and he told me he'd already made plans to go watch a hockey game with one of his friends. I was enraged when he didn't come home at 10:00 like he'd promised. The next six hours I went through cycles of depression, worry, anger, and rage. When he finally came home, at 3:00 a.m., he said he and his friend had been having a long talk, and he announced he was leaving me. He could no longer tolerate my unpredictable moods and, although I'd been working on improving myself for a very long time, he felt that in some ways very little had changed.
We talked for about an hour, mostly me begging him not to leave me and saying I would get better. Then he went to bed, leaving me alone. I felt my spirit sucked out of my body like water from a drain suddenly unclogging. The darkness from the week before returned in full force. I believed that I was entirely hopeless and decided that everyone would be better off if I were dead.
I began my suicide plan by finding the sharpest knife in the house. I then checked the pulse lines on both my forearms and marked the major arteries with a pen. I decided which wrist to cut first, and that I would do this on my back deck, because I didn't want to leave a stain on my beige carpet. Then I began writing a suicide note, but it occurred to me that if I left a note, my husband would probably destroy it and no one would know the truth. So I decided to call my sponsor and leave my final message to the world with her. When I called, I got her answering machine and she didn't pick up. I felt it was because she didn't care. In reality, she wasn't in town. So I called my best guy friend, who got up to take my call at about 4:30 a.m.
I told him I was calling to say good-bye. He asked where I was going. Then I proceeded to tell him of my plan and asked him to make sure I got a proper funeral and that everyone knew it was my husband's fault that I died. He tried desperately to talk me out of it. He reminded me of all I had going for me: two wonderful kids, a nice car, a beautiful house, so many friends who truly loved me. But none of that mattered to me. I finally told the truth about how I felt inside. It seemed like every time I felt alive and happy, a dark cloud would pass over me and stay with me for two weeks. I was tired of living that way, and felt as if no one would ever love me because of it. He suggested that I might have something else wrong, some sort of mood disorder. This only strengthened my resolve to kill myself. It was bad enough being an addict. I certainly didn't want to be a mentally ill addict, a double social stigma! After about an hour and a half of this, he finally said, "Well, if that's what you really want to do, go for it. But you realize that your husband will probably find someone else who was just like you were before you got clean, and that woman will get to live in your house and raise your kids. If it were me, I'd get a lawyer and make his life a living hell!"
Oddly enough, by tapping into my rage, he saved my life. At 6:30 that morning, the sun began rising, the birds began singing, and I could smell the apple blossoms on my trees. The presence of life around me gave me the strength to hold on for one more day.
Later that morning, my very worried sponsor called me. I told her that I was no longer planning to kill myself and let her know the truth about what had been happening with my mood swings, something I'd kept secret for years. She agreed with my other friend, that it sounded like a mood disorder and that I should put in an emergency call to my therapist as soon as we hung up. She also asked me to write a list of reasons to live and afterward begin a Fourth Step to describe all I'd been hiding. (Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.) She would be moving out of state the following weekend, so we decided I would do my Fifth Step with her that coming Friday. (Step 5: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.)
I wrote furiously, and by Friday I had about twenty pages, double sided, of my moral inventory. The Fifth Step with my sponsor took about four hours. We cried, prayed, and even laughed together. When it was over I felt emotionally drained, but the weight of carrying around my secret was gone. It had been confirmed earlier that week that I did have a mood disorder, called bipolar type II, rapid cycling. With this confession and medical help, I was back on the road to recovery.
Step 6 is "We became entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Mental illness is a medical condition, not a defect of character. Regardless, it didn't take me long to become entirely ready to ask God for help to rebuild my life.
Sunday, May 8, one week after my breakdown, was Mother's Day. It was also the day my husband decided to move out for awhile to get his head straight and make a decision about our marriage. That morning he went golfing. When he returned, he began packing while I went to a meeting. After I came home, he left. At first I felt incredibly alone. Then I remembered that God would always be with me.
I moved on to Step 7, "We humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings." I took that huge Fourth Step I had written out, and, without even looking at it, put it in a large coffee can. Then I dumped an almost full bottle of charcoal fluid on it, placed it on top of my grill, and set it on fire. I came into the house and lit the unity candle from my wedding and placed it behind me. I watched the huge flames from the coffee can through the patio door as I prayed and meditated. The small flame from the unity candle reflected in the glass. At times the flames from the can reached over four feet high. It burned for over forty minutes. The whole time, I asked God to reveal his will for me and to help me become whole again, regardless of what would happen to my marriage. When the flames finally went out, and the smoke cleared, I blew out the candle and went to bed.
The next morning, after I got the kids off to school, I went out to my deck to remove the coffee can and scatter the ashes from the burned paper. The coffee can was charred black inside and out. Everything in it had turned to white ash. Everything except one small scrap of slightly charred paper. Chills ran down my spine and my gut filled with fear. This was impossible! God was leaving me with something. Whatever it was, I didn't want it, and I ran back into the house. I paced circles in my living room as I prayed to remind God that I wanted him to take all of it away. Suddenly, I was filled with an incredible peace. I walked back outside and removed the scrap of paper from the can. It read: Reasons To Live:
My kids
My spiritual journey is not complete
It would be an insult to my God not to complete my life in his time
Awestruck, I put the paper back in the can. Tears streamed down my face as I felt the healing power of the Holy Spirit enter my heart. Just then, my sponsor's husband stopped by to see how I was doing. He was back in town to pick up another load of their things, and she'd asked him to check on me. When he saw my tears, he assumed I was upset and asked if he could do anything. I told him he'd just walked in on a miracle and took him to the back deck. I explained the ritual of the night before and asked him to read the surviving scrap of paper. After reading it, he collapsed to his knees and began sobbing, thanking God for allowing him to witness his work.
Others stopped by that day and were also shown the paper in the can. That evening, I scattered the ashes and disposed of the can. But that one little scrap of paper remains with me to this day, sheltered in a glass frame with an apple blossom. Whenever people tell me they don't believe in miracles, I show them mine and ask them if it could be anything but.
Thank you, God, for your wondrous works.
