Take My Hand Inspirations
Wellness Series
Life comes with choices. Choices bring about change—either positive or
negative. For example, we choose which
course to take in school. We choose our
friends and partner for life. We also
choose what we eat, how we dress, where we go to worship. And we choose to stay sober or addicted,
married or divorced, close to Jesus or far away. With our life choices come change. We change in the way we think, speak and act
(behave) as we experience the results of the choices we make. That is how we grow up or grow down or not
grow at all.
Growing up means you are matured in
your thinking, speaking and doing. You
have learned the lessons from your choices and now know what to accept and what
to avoid; and who to accept and who to avoid.
Growing down means you made choices and when you’re given back the
results, you hide from taking responsibility for your action (the consequence
of the choice you made). So, you
constantly shift blame on others for what is happening to you; and look for
“friends” who will join you in your self-pity party, ignoring the opened door
through which you can repent and try again.
But the most dangerous is not growing
at all. To be stuck at a point in life
and not to be able to move forward is like being alive, but dead to life. There are some changes in life we cannot
avoid, neither can we make a choice whether or not to go through them: puberty,
menstruation, adulthood, menopause and death.
We cross over into these changes without a choice. And we must find ways to “process” what is
happening to us at that time in a healthy manner so as to come out with our
heart singing the song, “It is well with my soul.” The man who composed the lyrics to this song
lost almost everything worth living for: all five of his children and business,
all snatched away instantly and tragically.1 How did he push forward to be able to not
only write but also to sing those lyrics?
Not growing at all means you have
given up on life. You don’t care what happens to you; you’ve lost hope in a
better tomorrow; and, if you don’t do something now, you will stop going to
church, reading the Bible and praying. Your faith will stop and you will become
the walking dead (still breathing, physically aging, but dead on the inside,
the soul-side).
Passing through puberty requires a lot
of conversations with peers and adults who are compassionate who want to guide
you through it successfully. For girls,
menstruation is part of puberty and with it choices about pregnancy and
abortion. For boys, the choice of masturbating
and choices about sexual experimentation are a giant temptation. What you do during puberty today makes you
into the adult you’ll become tomorrow.
And as we age through adulthood, the consequences for each action we
make become so evident in how they effect our spouse, our children, community
and society at-large. Menopause for
women brings its own course of challenges through which we must pass to become
effective grandmothers.
But the change of death can be
paralyzing. The death of a spouse you’ve
become one with for so many years, leaves a hole in your life so big, you feel
you want to jump in it and be swallowed up with that lost loved one. The death of a father or mother or sister or
brother, too, creates that same vacuum in your life and your soul wants to
follow them to wherever they are so that you can see and talk to and hug them
again, just one more time. And the death of a child is so wrenching, a pain inexplicable, such a horrible shock to your psyche that you don’t know how to
keep from going mad.
You remember all the bad things you have said or thought or done to them; crying in repentance. Then you remember all the good times you had together; crying for one more day and another day and another knowing that the days are all gone.
That hole can be filled with what you
choose to fill it with: depression or celebration. The death of a loved one can stop your soul
from living if you choose to stay in that darkness. Depression is a feeling of unhappiness and
lacking hope for a bright future. It is
also a period of no activity because usually you sit still in a dark place
pondering over all that is wrong in your life and embracing your sadness. And that hole can swallow you whole if you
stay there too long.
Then there is the choice of
celebration. To celebrate means to take
part in special enjoyable activities in order to show that a particular
occasion is important. For the
Christian, we have Someone and something to celebrate. Only Jesus can save the soul from dying. And He has what we humans, subjected to
unavoidable changes, can drink as the remedy that brings wellness to our souls
after the tragedy of the death of a loved one.
That remedy is His Holy Spirit—our Comforter and our mercy, our grace, and
our strength to climb out of that dark hole with praise to sing:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows life sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul
Refrain
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
Refrain
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live;
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But Lord ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
The celebration is called life. We must continue to live it and to change it
into the likeness of Jesus’ Great Commission every day and in every way in
order to put joy back into our own souls as we strive in our purpose for the
salvation of all the other souls yearning for our hands to pull them out of
their terrifying darkness. Are you ready to continue journeying on this path
called life growing up in the purpose for which you were born? Then shake depression off, and let’s get
going….let’s keep on growing . . . up!
This is an introduction to the next
series of this blog. It is called the
Wellness Series. Let’s hold hands as we
walk toward our wellness in 2020.
© 2020 by Patience
Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by Take My Hand Inspirations
Mission, a division of PepParadise Society Ltd. Publishers. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any
other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in
printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations
are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
1. It Is Well
With My Soul is a hymn penned
(written) by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss. First published in Gospel Songs No. 2 by Ira
Sankey and Bliss (1876). Shortly after
receiving a telegram from his surviving wife “Save alone….” Spafford traveled
to meet his grieving wife, and he was inspired to write these words as his ship
passed near where his daughters had died.
Artwork: Painting Crying Child by Kent Cotrell, Black House.
Take My Hand Inspirations
