What's on your mind?

Yesterday evening, I was at Delft's "The Door" church, and there pastor Osei Bobie preached a sermon with this title: "What's on your mind?" The guy has humour, oh yes he has. Never before have I laughed so much during a service. He knows how to keep the attention of his audience! I know for sure that this wouldn't be possible in a catholic church. Really, he's awesome. But he also had a serious message. He preached that our thoughts shape our emotions. And if your thoughts are bad and influenced by evil, then, consequently, your emotions will also be rather bad. That is to say, if the devil enters into your mind, he will influence your emotions and look, there you have the emotions of anger, fear, insecurity... you name it.

Sometimes you think that somebody is against you and/or doesn't love you. You just have this feeling, and you don't really have proof for this thought, but it's a thought and for you, it's real. What happens then is that you get - even if you don't ask for it - some proof for your thought, and this kind of proof enables you to see some proof for your thought, which makes the thought even stronger. The negative thought(s) get fed. But hey, this doesn't always has to be right. Sometimes it can, though.

Look at this situation. I've been home for a month after my last admission to the closed ward of the psychiatric clinic, and many times when I was in the isolation cell I got this thought: "Where is God now? I don't see Him, I don't hear Him, I don't feel Him", not knowing that it was the devil whispering this thought into my ear. He was the one wanting me to doubt God and God's presence in my life. There was even more proof for the fact that God didn't love me anymore: people from the church didn't come to visit me, only in the beginning of this 15-week admission. What I didn't know was that they did want to come to visit me, but when they called to the ward, the nurses told them it was better not to, meaning I was - once again - in the isolation cell. So they were almost as desperate as I was. Still, this was sufficient proof for me: God doesn't love me anymore. He even withdraws the people from church from my life. 

However, I was wrong. Afther the service yesterday, I talked to pastor Osei Bobie. I explained to him what had happened in the isolation room. He asked me if there were some people in my life I couldn't forgive. Indeed, I still have difficulties forgiving the people that isolated me, especially those in Belgium and especially one psychiatrist. See, the thing is, I was psychotic, yes, I heard those voices and saw those vivid images in front of my eyes, but still, I was aware of what was happening. That's the reason I fought back, that's the reason I went completely crazy and I screamed. We prayed together for forgiveness - I'd like to be able to forgive those people the same way God forgave me when I became a christian.
 

I stood eye to eye with the devil in the isolation cell, not knowing it was he who crossed my path. I thought it were my own thoughts, but it were the thoughts of the devil. Of course God was there with me, He was right there, on my side, and probably he was trying to comfort me. Maybe He was the one who made sure I almost always slept well in the isolation cell, with few if any exceptions. Maybe He was the one who put some people among the nurses who showed that they didn't want this, and that they really wanted to help me. Maybe He was the one who arranged so many things that made this turning back home possible. In any case, He was there, unmistakably. 

Many things are changing in my life these days. I'm doing voluntary work. I have two clients now who are adults unable to read or write. I see this as a challenge, to teach them how to read and write. Furthermore, I teach English to a Brazilian woman and Spanish to a Dutch woman. I go running three times a week, Start to Run with Evy Gruyaert, I go to the Leiden Observatory every Monday, I go to church every Sunday morning, I'm picking up karate within less than two weeks. That'll be on Wednesday evenings and later on, when I have some experience, also on Sunday evenings. So I have a busy schedule. I still have appointments with nurses and my psychiatrist, and I want to pick up individual creative therapy again. Also, I'm looking into the case of PGB (PersoonsGebonden Budget in Dutch, don't ask me how to translate this into English, but it means that you get some money from the municipality, and you use this amount of money to buy your own health care, a nurse for example with whom you go swimming or working out in the gym or just have a nice chat or... whatever, as long as you can explain to the municipality why you need it). So this will more or less be my schedule:

Monday morning: 10.30-11.30: teaching
Monday afternoon: appointment with psychiatric nurse
Monday evening: 19.30: Leiden observatory
Tuesday afternoon: 13.00-15.00: teaching
Tuesday: running, in the morning or the afternoon, depending on the weather
Wednesday morning: appointment with psychiatrist
Wednesday afternoon: 13.00-15.00: teaching
Wednesday evening: 19.15-21.15: karate
Thurday afternoon: 13.00-14.30: teaching
Thursday: running, in the morning or the afternoon, depending on the weather
Friday: FREE, time to study, read, watch TV, prepare classes if needed
Saturday: prepare classes, receive family, sometimes go to church in the evening  
Sunday morning: 11.00: Church
Sunday afternoon: running
Sunday evening: 19.15-21.15: karate

Quite busy, right? Will there be any time left to blog? ;)