Emotionally Damaged: Living With Job Burnout Merges with A Single Christian Woman Conflicted About America's Future

 

It was about 6AM when I woke... Actually I was glad for a little extra sleep and spending time away from the computer...But, immediately the glimpses of this beautiful song that I had seen for the last couple of days, popping up at YouTube, reminded me...I AM About the Father's Work... So, now was a good time, right?

The Lord's Prayer was given to All. It teaches us how to talk with God! A Good Thing...the words are coming--This is a time for prayer across the world, not just Christians--but Jews, Muslims, and all those who know that God Exists...MUST be praying...

The use of "My Words are being perverted," used by those who seek power, seek to rule over all God's People, must be stopped. Pray!

According to Vincent Chough, if we are not sure how to pray, he starts us by making sure that we spend a little time with Jesus...

Well, Folks, I've already mentioned when I stop and think of praying, pretty soon words of songs pop up in my mind, and I start singing... Yep, it happened, bringing both of these songs to my mind... So, if you don't mind, since Jesus apparently doesn't, I'm going to go along with this way today...

And tell you about how this came about...for me, at least.. I believe that each of us must find our personal relationship with God and...let Him tell you all about it... For I Know...

Hopefully you begin to see...words matter to me...and when I phrase them in a certain way, I seem to find words I want to say, but musically... Take for instance, The Lord's Prayer. I LOVE to sing this song. Normally, for church, there is no pianist who is able to provide the accompaniment... So I was thrilled to hear Bocelli, my favorite tenor, sing the words, in phrases, pauses, and speed, as I would sing it... I always sing along, or, if I can't sing it vocally, I will within my mind... So, if you know the prayer and want to say it, right now...remember, I'll be singing it along with you! Or, listen to the first video above, and we'll sing it together!

Chough writes an excellent book... He takes you step by step (I promise I am NOT doing this on purpose... Is It the Holy Spirit speaking or my memory of His love shining through music? Well, I just had an answer, I typed in step by step, thinking Each Step I take would come up... Instead, the actual words I had said came with this song...which I had never heard before! And yet, it fits within the topic... God is Cool! isn't He?! For He speaks through this song to walk step by step in His Spirit... Indeed, the Holy Spirit sends words in all situations, I have found... What we most need is to learn how to listen...

Praying for most of us is a personal thing... In the closet, alone, we turn...

When I cannot, or could not, find the words when I was in deep depression, my pastor and his wife had brought me Christian music without words... That did work, because I had been so burdened with all the words that I had to use in order to try to get my heavy workload done, that I could no longer bear to speak... Yet, even then with only accompaniment for the songs, the actual words of those selections filled my mind with those words...of comfort...of love...of...compassion...

Indeed as I began to gain some semblance of control-- at the worst of times I could not stop crying--I would begin to "think..." or, worse, if I were in a conversation and something angered me, I would strike out with harsh words... In My Mind, I was saying, STOP... Talking!

Two memories come to mind that I feel led to share. The first was when my older sister sent her son, Rick, over. I had not been answering the phone. Marlene was worried...and Rick, cared. He started at the front door... I was on the top floor of my condo and looked out the window and saw who it was... I did not want to talk. He kept knocking... I went downstairs and again, stood at the main floor at the top of the stairs, whispering, please leave me alone... And then it was quiet and I thought he might have gone...I was in turmoil, unable to gain control of my emotions, so I laid on the floor of my kitchen, trying to calm down. And, suddenly, knocking on the patio sliding door. I remember looking to my right and seeing feet..."Aunt Glenda" he called. I cried silently, and, in a way, prayed, over and over, please, just leave me alone. The quiet, silence was what I needed... He left...

The second was here in my cabin, after retiring, but still affected by the, I had learned, actual chemical changes that occurred in my brain when I had reached job burnout, resulting in clinical depression, a total lack of control of my mind... I had been...Emotionally Damaged...

I am still on medication for the changes my body made during those days of extreme workload, confusion, and pressure... The day my other sister, Dee, came knocking on my door, I had become upset over something I can't remember. It is normally related to having trouble with a bill, or some work I needed to try to have done... I find I have absolutely no patience, at times, to deal with...inefficiency, stupidity, or just plain nastiness, just because somebody wants to be that way... (As you can probably imagine, I've had many of those times during the last president's chaos and, in different ways, now as he's trying to regain that position, even while criminally acting!)

Anyway, Dee, and her husband Bill, stood at my door. It was a day that I just could not deal with... more... words... I have two doors and they moved from one to another, knocking, calling out for me... Even as I write this, I can remember when my crying turned to anger...Why wouldn't they leave me alone?! And then, I think, for the very first time, I walked to the door, opened it, and angrily spoke to my sister, "You Are Not My Mother!" and started to close the door...and then, even now as I remember it, she had food in her hands and had held it out... Would you believe I opened the door, grabbed the food...and closed the door in her face?! Yes, I did...and though I was immediately sorry, I could not speak further words... I couldn't bring myself to open the door again and say "I'm sorry and thanks for the food..." I went to bed and to sleep, escaping as I did when my emotions had become out of control...

Another time when I was unable to control my emotions, I'd like to share...just because...it's a precious memory... When my cousin, Beverly (Babe) died, with whom I had also been very close friends, she had asked me to sing He Touched Me at her funeral, First, this has become one of my top 10 favorite songs and I have to be in a happy frame of mind to sing it, normally. On that day, I, of course, wasn't... My sister Dee was playing the piano as accompaniment. But... I couldn't stop crying and the more I got upset aout not doing what she had asked of me, I cried even more... Then quietly, without saying anything, my brother, Keith, got up from somewhere behind me in the church, walked up to the piano...and started to sing...He touched Me! I sat, with the words in my mind, singing, calming down slowly...and then, for just the last phrase, I looked upward and sang with my brother... "And, Oh, the joy that floods my soul... Something Happened And NOW I KNOW...He Touched Me and Made Me Whole!" You know, nobody ever said anything to me after that service--not one person...I hope it was because they knew Babe was looking down...and was pleased... and forgiving...

So, when those days occur, and I can't find words, nor sleep, this is what I did... in order to calm myself down, and later, just when I couldn't rest easily, I would start with the alphabet... A Amen!

B

C

I find a song for nearly every letter of the alphabet except those, like X, for which no song has even been written, that I knew, that is... Sometimes I would make my way all the way to Z, singing some songs I knew by heart, some only the first verse and chorus, and some just the chorus...It was the need to make it through until I had calmed... Sometimes, I had to start over with A... and, yes, I would remember a new and different song, with the letter in the title...

So, most times when I start to pray, and think a word...I immediately hear the notes to sing!

Sometimes I would move into a different part that I might sing as a duet (just like some do in this vid of one of my most favorite, I think, prayer and praise songs... My sister and I routinely sang duets in church with her as lead, and my finding a part either higher or lower, whichever my ear would hear within the accompaniment. 

Finally, as I came to reading the final part of Be With Him; Be Like Him, and reading the part when you use The Lord's Prayer, he notes that by that time, we could spend, normally an hour or so with just the one song... I began to think... have I been doing this type of praying all of my life, only...singing the words?  In his book, Chough, takes each phrase of The Lord's Prayer and prays about what those particular words mean... I realize that this would be an effective way to spend time in prayer... for surely that is the goal, spending time... Being With Him...Being Like Him...

For me, way back when I was young and thinking about all things, asking why, who, when, where, and how even in those days... I learned of the Holy Trinity, 3 parts in 1, God, the Father, Jesus, His Son, and The Holy Spirit... Well, for me, since my father had been killed before I was born, I fully accepted God as my Father... His Son, ah... I heard the song...and knew He was to be my greatest, and bestest friend!

And His Holy Spirit was He Who Lives Within Me!

I had never heard this particular song...

but I believe it is

a God Incident...for me...

I am to speak of this experience within my book

I have been emotionally damaged,

But I am...still...about my Father's Business...

Soon...

God Bless,

Gabbie