As I continue on the road to recovery, there have been a couple bright spots that I thought would be worth mentioning here. You never can tell what is really going to be important to you somehow.

Chase
For my children, the mark of my illness and recovery is very simple. Chase. If I can play chase, I must be getting better. If I can’t play chase, then I’m still sick in the head (or something to that effect). Because right now the hardest thing for me to handle is my children, chase sort of represents a reentry into my family’s regular life schedule.

Chase is hard. I know, I know. It’s just running around like a crazy person with a few kids. But for the person suffering from depression, that kind of unwanton abandon, noise, suddon movement and general insanity is way outside of the normal comfort zone. It requires energy, excitement, the ability to say BOO at just the right time, etc.

In other words, just about everything that is difficult, all wrapped up in something that is so easy that most people do it even without thinking. But that is so often the case with depression. Things that you believe should be easy can become difficult on the way to impossible.

I think I’ve played chase once in the last year. This is down from at least once a day, maybe more. The once was last week. If we can move to once a week, that will be a huge step in the right direction

Preaching and Preparation
I’ve been preaching more and more the last couple months. Right now I’m pretty close to every week. Most of the sermons have been reruns, or last-minute throw together jobs. They were not my best were, or if they were, they were my best work from 2-5 years ago.

But last week was the first week that I had “normal” preparation for my sermon. Look at the text early in the week, read patristic and Luther sermons, see if there’s anything worthwhile that’s modern, and then write it down early enough in the week so I have time to edit it. Something like that. This happened last week. I don’t really even know why, it just did. So my Sermon on Sunday was much more relaxed, more “normal” for me. The congregation probably couldn’t tell the difference, but I could. It was a good sign.

Here are some questions for you:
1) What have you found the most difficult thing to come back to doing?
2) What made or is making it the most difficult?
3) What has been the easiest part of your life to return to “normal” and why?
4) What will never be the same?

Food for thought,
-DMR

As I continue on the road to recovery, there have been a couple bright spots that I thought would be worth mentioning here. You never can tell what is really going to be important to you somehow.

Chase
For my children, the mark of my illness and recovery is very simple. Chase. If I can play chase, I must be getting better. If I can’t play chase, then I’m still sick in the head (or something to that effect). Because right now the hardest thing for me to handle is my children, chase sort of represents a reentry into my family’s regular life schedule.

Chase is hard. I know, I know. It’s just running around like a crazy person with a few kids. But for the person suffering from depression, that kind of unwanton abandon, noise, suddon movement and general insanity is way outside of the normal comfort zone. It requires energy, excitement, the ability to say BOO at just the right time, etc.

In other words, just about everything that is difficult, all wrapped up in something that is so easy that most people do it even without thinking. But that is so often the case with depression. Things that you believe should be easy can become difficult on the way to impossible.

I think I’ve played chase once in the last year. This is down from at least once a day, maybe more. The once was last week. If we can move to once a week, that will be a huge step in the right direction

Preaching and Preparation
I’ve been preaching more and more the last couple months. Right now I’m pretty close to every week. Most of the sermons have been reruns, or last-minute throw together jobs. They were not my best were, or if they were, they were my best work from 2-5 years ago.

But last week was the first week that I had “normal” preparation for my sermon. Look at the text early in the week, read patristic and Luther sermons, see if there’s anything worthwhile that’s modern, and then write it down early enough in the week so I have time to edit it. Something like that. This happened last week. I don’t really even know why, it just did. So my Sermon on Sunday was much more relaxed, more “normal” for me. The congregation probably couldn’t tell the difference, but I could. It was a good sign.

Here are some questions for you:
1) What have you found the most difficult thing to come back to doing?
2) What made or is making it the most difficult?
3) What has been the easiest part of your life to return to “normal” and why?
4) What will never be the same?

Food for thought,
-DMR