Faith as recovery

I haven't quite made it a daily habit to pray. But I'm getting there.

Almost every day, I take down my little mini-altar, light a candle and incense, and use my little Kindle Book of Common Prayer on my tablet to say a morning prayer. Lately, I've been adding in other prayers from the book, not just the standard morning prayer, but prayers for the sick. Sometimes I feel like maybe I don't deserve those prayers. But I'm working on getting past that.

I've been mentally ill for almost as long as I can remember. I won't get into the details, partly because they're personally identifying, partly because it's just not what I want to write about. I think enough about my own failings without writing them all out again. What I wanted to talk about is how I'm making another push towards recovery. I made a therapy appointment - it's just over a week out now - and I'm going to try to actually stick with it this time. When I first started therapy I thought it was going to be easy, but five years of failed therapy (probably on my part, mostly) has proven me wrong. It's hard. Hard and frustrating and embarrassing and it feels shameful. But I'm trying again, and this time I want to incorporate faith into it, too.

I won't pretend that things are going to be solved through prayer, that God will suddenly take away all of the pain I've felt for over a decade. But I do think that this is something I've been missing in all aspects of my life - I knew that almost as soon as I sat down in church a month and a half ago. I've been lost for a long time. And I think now I have the tools to find those parts of me again, the parts that are happy and find meaning in life and don't engage in all the unhealthy behaviors that I do now. I know that it's going to be a hard journey and I know that it's not going to get fixed overnight. But I think it's a journey I'm finally ready to take. I'm tired of surviving. I want to live and be happy and make other people happy and stop letting this darkness prevent me from living up to the potential that God has set for me.
And I'm going to get that. I think I really do believe that, this time.