The Raging of the River of Despair
by
Ken Simmons
Part
Two: Christian Faith
and
the influences it has on the mentally challenged
Many like me who are mentally challenged seek answers in the many facets of the mind as they may present themselves to each individual. Like most people who have schizophrenia I have a detached sense of reality. In a sense I tend to create and live in a world of my own. It is in this world which consumes my thoughts that I find I am the most comfortable. For it is easier for me to focus on dealing with thoughts that are contrary to reality and keeping them to myself rather than voicing them towards who I might think is creating them. Sometimes while trying to live in this self-contained world creates conflicts within resulting in consequences which are detrimental to my continued well being. Even though I most often suffer from these consequences, I find myself struggling to maintain in the reality of this world, which my illness places, the boundaries thereof for me. There is however one thing that enters into my world that I seek of constantly to find comfort in when I am confronted with the many various conflicts within my mind.
This is a strong and overwhelming need for me to understand where I am with my own spirituality as it is related to God and Christ Jesus. Now I could go on at length on the various beliefs that I have and how they conflict with many of the others in the world today. However differences are not the issue here. The issue is that for most of those of us who are mentally challenged, there lies in us a deep-seated need to understand the depth of our own spirituality and its connection to our God. This need manifests itself in many forms as we are all created as spiritual beings (See Genesis 2:7). Some become very devout; while others can go completely to the opposite side, which is atheism. Some, whose illness is so intense, do become totally irrational believing that they are either God or Christ.
My beliefs are based on what I learned as a child. However with even the simple basic beliefs, which I have, there is a constant ever present need to understand the depth of my own spirituality and how it makes that personal connection to a God I have never really taken the time to get to know before.
To help me with this understanding I’ve used prayer and meditated and at times just sat and thought about the various aspects of all the basic religious beliefs that have been taught to me. To help myself understand more fully I turned to the Bible. Now let me tell you, there has never been a more compelling book ever written. The Bible has everything, amazingly in the writing of its 66 books by 40 different Godly inspired authors, of which 15 were from totally different and drastically diverse cultures, over a period of time, which spanned some 1500 years. Yet it manages to maintain the most consistent and continual message of the central theme, which is the 3 times Christ the only Son of God shall come. All of the opposing and extremely various other religions which have all been written by men out of there own knowledge. Wherein none of which can claim the same accuracy in their prophecy fulfilled predictions. For they being written of men have none, but have instead only promises for being good and loving person in their life and works. The Bible tells us just the opposite, where those whom shall receive the blessings are those who walk by faith in Christ alone.
It is through this consistent narrative and the many references of the various writers to the spirituality of all its characters and of our Creator. That gives the Bible its singular and powerfully dynamic character. For it in the revealing of its truth, it testifies to the existence of the truth of its Spiritual origin, by itself, in itself, and for itself throughout its entirety without a single error in its consistency.
Even in the Bible, the characters have in them the same need we do, to come to an understanding of their own spirituality. I see the reality of all this as the Holy Spirit has opened its words unto to me, as I read more and more through it. I came to the conclusion that my search for my own spirituality wasn’t as weird as some may think. Simply because I have an illness, some worry it may become an irrational belief with a zealous nature. Now I personally have no radical beliefs when it comes to my faith, however there are those who in their illnesses the issue of religion has caused great rifts between them and their actual reality. So much so, that they lose touch with what is real and what is fantasy. However this does not lessen their need to understand their own spirituality, for it is no less important, nor is it any different than my own.
So why does it seem that a lot people who are mentally challenged have such a great desire to understand their own spirituality? I can’t speak for others, but as for myself, in my world, and as to my own understanding of my spirituality as being connected to my Creator, it is a constant source of comfort to me. Knowing there is at least one who knows me completely and still loves me no matter what I have done or been. This came only with my total surrender to Christ through my faith in the belief that He can and has forgiven me from the evils I have committed against Him and man.
It was to this end that I started to put into poems my various thoughts, beliefs and understandings of my faith, which I have chosen to believe in. For the most part they just seemed to start coming out as I started to reflect more and more on the teachings of those things which I was taught when I was a child. As this was the basic formation of my spirituality as it related to me in my life and gives unto me the most believable basis for my existence with the greatest amount of truthfulness in understanding.
Now my faith hasn’t always been a source of comfort for me. For when I was growing up I was an abused step child and as a child I also lost a younger sister to downing, who spent her entire knowledgeable life seeking out for herself who Christ was. In her eyes, Christ was the greatest of all gifts and she sought Him at every available opportunity, even to the point of scaring our mother to death with her continued absences to attend churches on different days of the week. I thought to myself, what kind of loving God could allow such things to happen and even more, how could He allow such a tragedy to occur while allowing so many vilely evil people to exist.
Today even though I am challenged mentally, I now through Christ find that God is a constant companion that I can talk to at anytime, for any reason and about anything at all. Finding through Christ an open access to God is to me now a constant source of comfort and assurance. My deepest desire is that all those who may read these poems will find for themselves as I have. That sense of peace and comfort that I can assure you, you’ll only find when you come to Jesus, just as you are, and accept Him just as He is, in complete surrender.
The following are just some of various poems that I have written, which I feel have been Godly directed through me. They have helped me to cope, living with a life so full of such debilitating and drastic diversities in all the many conflicting emotions and feelings, which I experience on a daily basis.
It has been through these poems that I have found the help, hope and renewed faith I needed to come to, to reach an understanding of where I stood with my own spirituality. I hope and pray that they will inspire you as well, too open your hearts and to seek for yourselves an understanding of your own spirituality as you are related to God your only true Father and Jesus Christ your Creator.
View Sample
Christian Poems:
The Rights of Passage
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