A Higher Plan

The brain is amazing.  I think you will agree when you consider all the functions it performs just to get you through each day.  Each lobe has specific jobs and interpretations, and yet, they still must coordinate in complex relationships to relay information.  No area is an island.

It's interesting to note that our identity is locked in brain waves, our emotions locked in chemicals, so that adjustments, even minor ones, may alter who we are known to be.

Does it then scare you that we seem fragile?  Our very selves wrapped up in chemicals, neurons, and complex pathways that might not always function just right.  We think that is a yet future concern if we are "young," but it is possible that tomorrow we wake and find it not be the case.

God has not often presented trial to me in the form of illness or medical need.  I lead a relatively healthy life to this point, for which I am thankful, but in recent months and weeks I have been feeling unwell as I shared in an earlier post.  I received a diagnosis yesterday and treatment and management are now under way.  I am taking some prescribed medication and it is already having an effect. Tiny white pills are actually changing me.  It's fascinating, truly, what the body and mind do and how we respond.

As a nursing assistant, on clinical rotation I worked in an Alzheimer's unit.  It was far from a pleasant experience.  I was seven months pregnant and one of the patients became irate and began shoving and hitting me.  My balance wasn't great because I am a short person and by this point in my pregnancy my center of gravity was difficult to locate.  All ended well, without serious consequence, but I never forgot her face.  How upset she was.  How completely lost and alone.  How she then rocked and hugged all eight of her baby dolls which I was told seemed to represent her children.  She thought I was going to hurt her child, and while her mind was struggling with reason, her protective instincts were intact, and perhaps overcompensating for the lack of clear thought. Maybe somehow deep inside she knew this wasn't quite right or perhaps her mind was so shrouded in grey that it was not possible to decipher any of it.  I think about her.  I wonder what she was like at forty.  I wonder about her eight children.  Once her mind was clear, and her life, vibrant, I suspect.

Movies are dedicated to the topic.  The Notebook being quite popular with the ladies.  Of course it is enchanting to think that someone will love you even when you've lost yourself.  Of course we want to believe that someone will stay the course because they still know you.

I think losing the person you know yourself to be would be so painful.

I think being lost inside yourself would be so lonely.

And, yet, I believe that there are people walking around looking "normal" but feeling these exact feelings.  People I see every day, uncertain, lonely, and worse, unloved.

The mind is a powerful thing.  We are wrapped up in our emotions, neurons, and chemical balance.  But we are also managers of our souls.  A deep part of us that is looking for answers, seeking hope and life.  I believe the soul overrides and outlives the temporal.  I believe the soul lives forever.  The hope I have in mine is what spurs me to help the lonely, to show certainty, and to love.

We are not guaranteed to keep ourselves just as we are.  Time will change us.  Our strongest thing - our mind and will can be altered.

But our soul.  That can be kept by God above.  See a higher plan, dear friend, in this world.  Seek hope and life to fill your soul.

Tell the stories. Make the confessions.  Free yourself from the chains that would bind you.

Grace we cannot understand will meet you.

Your life will never be the same.

I leave you with a quote:
"To love another person is to see the face of God."