As you read my blogs and perhaps this one in particular, please keep in mind that it is not an advice column. I am simply sharing my life, experiences, and thoughts with you.
Three years ago on August 22, 2023, God healed me in a moment of bipolar. I like to mention that in that moment, my thoughts quieted, my mind stilled, and my soul felt less distracted and disturbed than I could remember it ever feeling in my whole life, but I was well aware that all of the medications the doctors had prescribed to help me were still in my system and affecting the physiological operation of my brain. When I shared with my psychiatrist and counselor that the LORD had healed me, I acknowledged how spectacular that sounded.
I had read all about "religiosity” where someone has a “spiritual experience,” thinks they’ve been healed, jumps off their medication, and has bad outcomes. I asked them to please give me a safe pace to wean off the medications, and if there were any signs I was wrong, I would immediately return to the medication and never claim to be healed again….but I KNEW I was healed.
Standing here, three years after the fact, I can tell you with all the confidence in the world that the root of my mental illness was agreeing with the enemy about things. John 10:10 says that the enemy comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but that Jesus came to give us an abundant life. There is NO abundant life in mental illness, so it is not from God and we do not have to agree with the thoughts the enemy offers us. We can choose to stubbornly REFUSE to believe any thought that disagrees with the written Word of God and live in mental and emotional freedom. The enemy can only take what we in ignorance or rebellion give him.
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Cleans your hands, you sinners;
And purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the LORD, and He will lift you up.
James 4:6b-8, 10
In the weeks and months that followed my healing, the LORD slowly and systematically had me let go of many things. Immediately following my healing, in my mind’s eye, I saw this REALLY FAT file in my office of handouts I had collected from my years of counseling and recovery meetings labeled “counseling.” I had been collecting them because my life goal was to become a life coach by the age of 50, and I thought that would be good material to coach clients through certain situations. As I considered why I had it all, my mind suddenly flashed to my firepit and I felt led to burn that whole file.
I wasted no time. That evening when I returned home from work, I took that file out back and made a little fire of it. Watching each paper catch on fire and burn, there was a peace that washed over me and I didn’t regret letting it go even a little….even with how much effort I had gone through to collect and organize it all.
The next thing that popped into my head was my YouTube channel. I had been making videos on that channel since 2017 and I had well over 200 videos, some of which had gained a lot of traction. One video which I made in honor of my stillborn son Zander had over 57,000 views. I had beautiful nature videos from vacations to national parks, educational videos, videos of recovery lessons I had taught, Bible studies I had done and a BUNCH of videos vlogging through my ADHD diagnosis at 37 and my bipolar diagnosis at 40. I had shared many useful things I learned through my 75+ counseling sessions and more.
I saw my channel in my mind’s eye and I felt I was to delete every video where I talked about ADHD and bipolar because I was starting to understand those things in a different light. I was beginning to see that there were spiritual roots that needed to be addressed, not symptom management as I had been doing for so many years. Over the course of the first year of my healing I had reduced my channel to well under 100 videos but about a year after I was healed, the LORD had me delete the channel entirely and start over because what I THOUGHT I understood about Him and what I now knew were very different.
He also had me delete all of my social media accounts, although I never figured out how to permanently delete some of them, and I deleted another YouTube channel where I had spent an entire year of my life manically making over 450 birthday videos with wigs, glasses, costumes and three different characters to use as digital “birthday greetings” to text my friends on their birthdays.
My life and mind was always very busy and chaotic. I don’t miss that mind at all!
My office was a mess. I heard the LORD tell me to clean up my office. Every one of my books besides my Bibles, my Bible reference books, journals and art journals were to go out to my treehouse. My treehouse is an insulated, climate controlled she-shed on stilts in my back yard. I took excessive items off the walls, removed all decorations on horizontal surfaces, and slowly but surely with my family at work and school, I would use the bits of time between my own clients to drag it all out to the treehouse with my little red wagon.
As my office became cleaner and cleaner, I heard the LORD say, “I want you to pack for a two week trip. One week in the summer and one week in the winter.” Beginning to pack, I pulled out overalls and shorts overalls along with the little snap on the bottom shirts. I used to joke that I would be known as the little old lady with the overalls. In my spirit I heard, “You will not be known for anything but Me. Overalls go in the treehouse.”
I pulled out my two best fitting jeans, both of which had holes in them and I heard, “I am Holy, your jeans are not, those go in the treehouse.”
Reaching for the shoes I would need for two weeks, I grabbed my favorite sandals with sparkly straps and I heard, “Everything that sparkles goes.” I set them aside to take them to the treehouse and heard, “Donate.” OK, so nothing with sparkles.
By the end of “packing,” I had two normal and unattractive jeans, two pairs of non-holey capris, and two pairs of jean shorts with 7 short sleeve t-shirts, 7 long sleeve t-shirts, a couple hoodies, a couple plain knee length cotton summer Walmart dresses, black gym shoes, black MaryJanes, black Crocs, and black flip flops. Everything else went out to the treehouse besides my adorable sequined dresses, shoes, and other sparkly clothes which immediately got donated.
It’s a much longer story, but when probably 70-80 percent of what I PERSONALLY owned was in the treehouse, I had a vision that the treehouse was on fire. Someone told me and with no emotional response at all, I thanked them for letting me know. I told my friend who had been discipling me and asked her if she thought that was odd. She said, “Not at all. I had the same thought 30 minutes ago and wrote it in my journal.”
Throughout the weeks, the more I let go of, the more peace I experienced.
It was a wonderful and odd exercise in letting go. After that vision, the LORD started directing me where I was to donate all those clothes, shoes, decorations, and the hundreds of self-help books that had done little over the years other than to PROVE that I COULD NOT overcome all of my dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors on my own.
I wondered why He went to the trouble of having me carry it all out to the treehouse first, but I realize I probably would have had a much harder time letting go if I didn’t think He was creating a storage room or a resource room where I could go get any of the stuff if I decided I needed it.
There was great freedom and peace in completely letting go.
I couldn’t do anything about the excessive amount of belongings anyone else in my home owned, but my own space became a peaceful sanctuary. I cleaned up and simplified my office, my side of the bedroom, and my side of the bedroom closet.
As time marched on, I found those three Walmart dresses and the black leggings I wore with them to be the most comfortable, enjoyable clothing I owned and I often thought, “If I could JUST wear these three dresses every day for the rest of my life, I would be SO HAPPY!”
One day at Walmart, I saw that the dresses were back and in LOTS of colors! I bought one in almost every color they had and decided to test the theory. Would I truly be content wearing nothing but these dresses?
I bought leggings in full length, capris, just above the knee, and shorts…all black…and in the winter I bought a week’s worth of black Cuddle Dud undershirts. It’s been just over two years that I’ve been wearing these dresses and I must say, it was the best decision of my life! The only thought I have to make about getting dressed in the morning is what color I’m in the mood for!
I have one dress with paint on it, so that’s my painting outfit. I have 5 dresses that are kinda worn or have little stains on them. I wear those when I’m working cleaning houses, taking care of yardwork for my clients or working in the yard at my own house. I probably have 10-12 good dresses that I rotate based on mood and what I’m doing that day.
Someone asked, “What do you wear to weddings?”
I held the skirt of my dress out and gave a little curtsie.
She asked, “What about funerals?"
I repeated my curtsie. What about when you exercise? Well, I wear the work dresses of course.
When I go outside to gather tomatoes from my garden, I hold my dress like a pouch and carry the produce in the house in my skirt. I think about how the women 100 years ago would do the same with the apron of their skirt. When I think about the simplicity of this wardrobe, I realize the immense freedom of a nun who wears her same habit every day. There is freedom in every area of life that no longer has a choice to be made.
I’m getting closer and closer to feeling that way about food. I LONG for the day when we go through the food that has been sitting in our freezers and pantry and NEED to go to the grocery store to get groceries for the week.
Excess feels like a burden to me no matter what category it falls into. There is something very freeing about a mind that is unburdened by clutter.
I still have a LONG way to go before anyone could call me a minimalist. I still have a LOT of stuff, but I’m getting closer and closer to living the “Walmart dress dream” of a simple life.
We don’t own stuff as much as our stuff owns us. I think there is great beauty in a simple life lived simply.
I used to have a repetitive daydream where it all went up in smoke and I had to decide what I would own. In my dream it is always very simple, my phone and laptop where I communicate with people and process ministry writing, a simple wardrobe, my Bible, my journal, and all my favorite pens. Of course I would need a couple bath towels, basic toiletries, a good set of sheets, a basic set of necessities for the kitchen, appliances, and places to sit.
I could live without the exercise equipment, the bike (although I enjoy riding with my husband), the yard, the party supplies, the nicknacks, the extra books, the TV etc.
As a child, I don’t remember having an excessive amount of belongings or anyone in my house owning an excessive amount of belongings. I feel like life was much simpler with less and people had more time for each other when they could spend less time caring for stuff.
I have a history of letting go then collecting, letting go then collecting. There is so much freedom in letting go. I look forward to the day when I truly discover a life of abundant simplicity.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy
And where thieves break in and steal;
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
Where neither moth nor rust destroys
And where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21