I don’t know about the rest of you, but God regularly sends people to me with messages. By that I mean He sends strangers to me to give me messages that He wants me to hear. It’s happened maybe three or four times in my life. It happened again this morning.

I’ve been trying in fits and starts (more fits, than starts truth be told) to get us starting each day with prayer. I know that sounds all holy and everything. But I need it more than anyone else in the family. I’ve been wanting to use the Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbria Community. I’ve had it for over a year now. We begin every now and again. But I realized (after my chat with the doctor yesterday) that it really is important to me. So I decided to become very intentional about it.

But … I tend to be sort of ADD sometimes. And I got distracted. I had a plan. But something else came up. Couldn’t tell you what it was. LightGirl got up late, LightBoy was building a Bionicle, LightHusband got a phone call. Everyone was spinning off in their different directions and the way my head is right now, spinning in many different directions all by itself, well, the prognosis wasn’t good. Then the doorbell rang. So I answered it and in so doing, groaned inwardly. Two ladies in dresses with Bibles. Oh no, it was probably Jehovah’s Witnesses or something. YIKES.

But no, they just wanted to read one verse to me. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

And really, that was all they wanted to do. They didn’t tarry any longer. Then they got in a car and drove away. Originally they’d said they were in the neighborhood knocking on all the doors, but they didn’t seem to go to any other houses; just mine. And, it was just enough to remind me of my determination for prayer and how to begin the day.

And here was the Scripture that went with today’s prayers:

Psalm 139:7-8
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

1 John 4:16-18
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

It seems arrogant to say that God had a message for me, but if there was any Scripture that I needed for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training today, it was those two. Today’s meditation was extremely poignant as well. It was clear to me that God still pursues us and I wanted to mark it with an Ebenezer of some sort. I want to remember this morning that when I called out, He was gracious enough to reply.

So I’m on a long strange journey of my own lately. It’s not terribly comfortable although I do seem to be spending an awful lot of time on the couch. I’m not really sure when it started, but the straw that broke this camel’s back came last Wednesday. I’m not even sure what the straw was. But I started having a panic attack and it lasted all day. And into Thursday. And I started thinking about how strange my thoughts have become over the last 3 or 4 months. It seems to have come about during the time I started a new medicine to control my seizure disorder. So I called my neurologist. He recommended decreasing my dose. And I asked for something to control the panic attack. But he could not prescribe that without seeing me and that he could not do until mid-February. He suggested a visit to my primary care doctor. So I made an appointment for Friday morning with one of the physicians in that practice. That doctor prescribed a well known anti-depressant.

Sometimes when you pause to say, “You … shall NOT … pass!” to a monster, even when it’s in your head, it can still grab you by the knees and pull you over the edge of a cliff. I’m in the middle of a long dark fall now. I went back and saw my actual primary care doctor Wednesday morning. I love her. She changed the anti-depressant because I’m not responding well to the original. Not well at all. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch and I’ve not been eating. I’ve lost 8 pounds in 5 days. That’s the upside. It’s better than the Special K diet (according to LightHusband). Then she prescribed a half hour walk every day. Every, every, every day. Outside in the full spectrum sunlight. And then she used her Jedi Knight powers and told me to, “… go home and rethink your life.” (a favored line from one of the first 2 Star Wars movies). Really what she said was that perhaps I needed to follow Jesus’ example of 40 days in the desert and take some time out or off to re-evaluate my life, how things were going and what I’m doing. She said it’s okay to do that every now and again. She even wrote it down as part of my prescription. She also ordered blood work to make sure that this is not being caused by something organic.

I have no grandiose misperceptions of myself. I am no Gandalf the Grey. This is frightening. Something mysterious is messing with my head. While I am prone to being melancholy, I am also far more likely to sing “It Is Well With My Soul” than anything else. So how on earth did I come to be in the Mines of Moria facing a Balroc? And how did it pull me over the edge of the cliff? I know it’s all metaphor and analogy, but that’s how this feels. The best thing I can hope for is that the fall did not kill Gandalf, but it did change him. He came out purer and stronger in the end. I guess that would be a good thing … but right now it looks pretty bleak and I’m not real keen on the falling sensation.