But — the Day After the High

 

 I could hardly wait for Hugh to get up that morning so I could tell him the exciting news. My “feel good” serotonin levels were dancing around on a crazy high, and I was walking in a cloud. (while my poor porridge burnt on the stove)

The goal had seemed almost impossible, unachievable by any realistic standard, and yet we had made it. Yes, I did know it was God: His timing, His direction, His leading in all of it. But I was experiencing the euphoria.

Our book, The HughNeelands Story, had reached #1 in two categories on Amazon's “Hot New Releases.” Sales had been doubling every day for the last three or four days, and now it was rated below #4ooo in Amazon’s over all book rating out of millions of books.

A couple of years earlier, my book The Path He Chose for Me had made it to #14 on one of the same Hot New Releases categories on Amazon, and it had given me a high. I had hoped to see Hugh’s book get an even better rating, but to rise to #1 was barely even a dream. Now it was a reality.

But the real reality stepped in the next day. My serotonin was demanding more excitement. I checked the Amazon stats. It was already down a bit in one of the Hot New Releases categories, and it had gone over 8000 in overall book ratings. Of cource, that was still amazing, but not as good as the day before. And not good enough to create the high my emotions craved. The book fluctuated between #1 and #20 or more for several days and so did my serotonin levels before dropping almost out of sight.

Meanwhile plans for Hugh's birthday party/book launch were well under way. Some had bought the book on Amazon and were bringing it to be signed. Others were picking one or more up at the party. We were building to another high. 

After an afternoon of signing books and meeting people enthusiastic about the book, we were both soring. It had been another high for us. But now that is over and again reality has set in, and with it the craving for another high. It always happens. 

In The Hugh Neelands Story, Hugh shares his battle with his alcoholic addiction. But there are so many different kinds of serotonin related addictions that most of us have in our lives, whether it is the need for the lift of a chocolate bar, or the buzz that comes with the applause after a good performance. We can easily allow our lives to be ruled by our cravings for "highs."

Whether we are writers, preachers, entertainers, or just ordinary people interacting on Amazon, we need to be aware of what is driving us. God gave us serotonin, and He gives us mountain top experiences to go with it. But He also gave us the cool quiet valleys to explore and go deeper into Him.

Let Jesus be your “high” as He helps you to bring joy to others, but let Him walk with you through all the valleys as well.

Valleys can be beautiful!

For the last post see: Do we need to look back on the sad parts of our Journey?

Do we need to look back on the sad parts of our Journey?

 

Why was it that every time I flipped through my pictures, I purposefully skipped all the breathtaking shots of our temporary home on the reserve where so much good had happened? Why didn't I want to browse through my memories of the children I had loved or the place where I had nurtured them?

It even hurts to write about that time in my life now. I made up my mind, several days ago, to look back on that time, and to write an honest blog, but but then I set it aside. It may be just too hard. Is it even worth the effort if I can't give you an upbeat ending? If I knew for sure that at least one of the children that I led to the Lord and mentored, was still walking in victory, it would seem worth it. But the problem is, I do not know.

It was pure joy at the time as we led them, one by one, into a walk with God. The classroom atmosphere in the Christian school started changing, and working with these children was just one blessing after another. I will admit that there were setbacks along the way, but the thrill of seeing our students growing in the Lord day by day made it all worth while.

I have memories of sitting at the lunch table with them, discussing their new found joy, and praying together for others who needed Christ. There were memories of finishing reading “Susie's Story” to them and then having two different students come to me privately and confess having told me a lie. Their new found consciences had been awakened, and I was thrilled to know that they had been listening and had responded.

There was the memory of a pair of sixteen year olds who already had a baby but were not allowed by their parents to marry. They had come to us for council, Bruce with the boy, and I with the girl. On the second or third session, I led the girl to the Lord, and at the same time, Bruce in another part of the house was leading the boy in the same direction. They were both thrilled that they had made the decisions independent of each other. I was walking on air as I watched all this happening.

I had a ladies Bible study, and I began to see results there as well. Their husbands were seeing a change in their wives and their marriages were mending. One man started coming back to church. It was all like a beautiful dream.

I should be dwelling a whole lot more on those precious times, but I can't, because with the happy memories, comes the sad ones. We needed to leave the reserve for a short while, and when we came back we discovered that Satan had been working overtime. He had gained a foothold in the school. We were devastated. Some of our most ardent new converts had been turned against us while we were gone, and once again, had become problems in the class. We were stunned.

A parent, the one that was largely responsible for the mess, demanded our resignation. The school board didn't want us to leave, but we only had a day or two before the ice roads closed. After that there would be no way to get any of our stuff out. We felt defeated, but at the same time, we felt the Lord was telling us it was time to go and he would send others to continue the work.

The school hired a brave young man to drive our car back over the melting ice roads, and we took the plane to Red Lake where we retrieved our car and headed, in defeat, back to Owen Sound. The Lord did provide us with one amazing miracle on the way home, (I write about it in my book, “The Path He Chose for Me”) and that helped us to ease the feeling of failure somewhat, but it was still hard.

What happened to the students? I don't know about most of them. I have heard from three. One sounded hungry for the Lord, but was not ready to commit himself. One was struggling after a murder happened in his family. He is still floundering after the Church family handled the situation badly; but the hardest to think about was a message I received on Facebook one day. It was filled with foul language and unbelievable hate. It was from the son of the mom who had demanded our resignation, a boy who had turned his life around while we were there. Now he seemed even worse than before.

I wrote back that I loved him, and I prayed for him and the others. That's all I could do. But then gradually I began to block it all from my mind. It just hurt too much.

I guess the problem with how I handled my hurt is that for the last few years I haven't been praying for those kids much at all, even though I thought I loved them so passionately. Lord forgive me for that! Is my love fickle? Is it right for me to retreat into my comfort zone, to escape the hurting memories?

Lord, help me pray through for those kids.

The Hugh Neelands Story (coming out in a few days) has had the same effect on Hugh. There are some segments of the story that he had a hard time telling, and he didn't enjoy hearing those parts of his life over and over as we went through the first, second and third drafts. It would have been much easier for both of us to entirely ignore the mistakes in his journey, and yet, in the end, he felt that the whole writing process had been a tremendous blessing to him.

I would love for you, the reader, to help me by weighing in on this question: Is it a good or a bad thing to block out scenes in your life that involve sad situations? I really don't know. Please tell me what you think?

His Direction through my lack of Direction

 

I can’t remember addresses. I have always wondered why God made me that way, but now I am beginning to understand.

Hugh can give directions to where anyone has lived in the surrounding district in the past seventy years. It’s easy for him even though he is as dyslexic as I am. But I can’t even retain the addresses of any of my four children.

When I was a child my parents wanted us to hide God’s word in our hearts, so they encouraged us to learn scripture. Like Paul’s young friend, Timothy, I spent many, many hours at my mothers knee, learning the word of God. Mom would actually pay us a penny a verse to memorize scripture, and I worked hard at it.

There was just one catch, and for me it was a big one. We had to be able to say where it was found in the Bible. In other words, we had to remember it’s address, and although I was good at memorization, I just couldn’t remember the reference. I still only know the addresses of a few verses such as John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 and 1John 4: 7 and 8 even though most of the Bible is very familiar to me.

And yet, I just realized today lately that God had a definite purpose in creating me this way. As strange as this may seem, this trial has been my blessing.

The Lord has various ways of speaking to His children. Each of us are different. Each of us learn to hear His voice in a way that He chooses for us. This is how it usually happens with me:

There may be a question on my heart, or something may have happened that is bothering me. I hunger to hear from my Savior. I randomly open my Bible, and He speaks to me through the verses I read. It may be a passage of scripture that is very familiar to me, but I would not have remembered it, or if I had, I would not have known where to find it. Every time this happens, and it happens often, I am awed by how clearly He has spoken to me, and how He has done it without my ability to know where to look.

Many times I am in the wrong, and He uses this means of communication with me to correct me. Other times, He assures me through the scripture that what I am feeling is Him and He is leading me. And through it all He has been teaching me to listen and obey His voice.

Lately God has put a special burden on my heart to be able to minister in some way to the body of Christ. But when God gives you a gift, it isn’t always easy to follow through with how He wants you to use it. It’s one thing when the Holy spirit uses the gift to speak a word of correction to me. That is actually much easier than what I was asked to do which was to pass on a word to someone else.

Thank you God for even the hard tasks!

For the previous post see: Failure

For the next post see Do we need to Look Back on the Sad part of our Journey