Love, faith, belief
by Brother Andy
God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him
Through God's love, Jesus is our way our truth and our life..
By God's might we are sustained and we breathe; the very breath which
inspires us to faith, hope, love, wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and awe.
Filled with His Spirit we prophesy, we heal, we speak angelic tongues and
yet.
Yet, there is darkness too! Those times when I have ceased to believe Love
encompasses all the evil we have wrought. Belief is suspended in my own
helplessness, my despair that Christ will never return, and if he does
will he find faith on earth?
This then is my revolving door through which I journey from light to
darkness and back again; from belief to agnosticism through to ever
stronger, deeper faith. , for only in knowing darkness can I understand
the light.. Only by knowing the uncertainty of fear can I discover love
once more!
God has made all things and all things have their being in him. God is in
the wars, the bombs the death camps, for he surrounds all our evil with
hope of love. Any evil there is in this world comes spewing from our
hearts for our fear and terror of one another will obliterate the earth -
if we let it.
There is no legless, slithering snake to blame for my mistakes, no devil
that made me do it. There is just my darkness, the things in me I will not
own. Those things of me I fear in others.
Yet God is there waiting in the shadow behind my back and when I have
embraced all of my own then I have embraced God and have known him in my
darkness.
And so I journey on!
Brother Andrew holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Philosophy and among other things writes Inclusive Theology for Christians who are ostracised and fearful of Church due to the fears and tensions of this present world. Andrew is also a Poet and uses Poetry as a Tool to process his inner torments and to dialogue with fellow Christians, and others, who suffer with mania and or depression.
At the age of 17 Andrew experienced, a serious Depression, though did not realize that the 6 or so weeks he spent as a barely functioning person was in fact just that. This first time the depression had a real time cause, fear of his HSC results. Andrew was later to be diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder as the result of temporal lobe damage caused by uncontrollable epilepsy.
Andrew became a ‘Born Again’ Christian as a Youth in the Baptist Church and, until fairly recently has been perplexed that Faith in God does not preclude mental Illness or Anxiety. In his early 40’s Andrew began to face his inner demons and to experience Persecution Mania with both visual and auditory hallucinations.
From here on in, Andrew’s Bi-polar incidents are mainly the result of chemical reactions in his brain caused by the Brain quietening brought on by AED’s (Anti Epileptic Drugs), though these drugs are antipsychotics by nature they do not tame his mental madness.
Now, at the age of 54 Br Andrew continues to battle, this time, with unipolar depression and to write more Essays and Poetry to assist himself and others to live with and embrace mental illnesses.
Br Andrew also has his own website at rev-andrew.com
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