My First Blog Post

So..this is my first post. Hence the "catchy" title. In a televised vice-presidential debate in 1992, Ross Perot's running mate Admiral James Stockdale, famously began the debate by saying..."Who am I?...why am I here?" I feel like that with this blog/website. I literally have very little idea what it is I'm doing here. I've been through a crap ton of emotional trauma in my life. I plan on writing my entire story at some point. But I am a Jesus follower, and His command to love your neighbor as you love yourself is the inspiration for this website. I wish to use the terrible things that have happened to me to help others who have also been traumatized in their lives. Truth is, all humans are traumatized in one way or another in life, in some ways. I call that the human condition. However, some poor souls have been seriously traumatized by extraordinary trauma, like war, sexual assault, child molestation, domestic violence, terrible accidents, spiritual abuse at the hands of religious people, all different types of abuse, and the terrible grief and loss that comes through losing loved ones in particularly tragic ways. Some (very few) weather their personal storms and are generally healthy, while others...like me...not so much. I have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the multiple traumas I've experienced in my life. I also suffer from a depressive disorder. Yup, I'm disordered. Afflicted. Ill. I take prescribed psychiatric medication to help me. But Christ has seen me through it all. I've survived and now I'm 52 years old and I've learned some stuff over the years about trauma, mental illness, and how it all relates to God. Many Christian churches have struggled with the concept of mental illness throughout the years, choosing to see it as a spiritual (read SIN) problem rather than a biological illness. I reject that categorically. Science has proven through extensive research that mental illness can be largely biological. Having said that, of course there is a spiritual component to everything in our lives. That's the way God made us, with a body, a mind, and a soul/spirit. All this abuse and crap can indeed be attributed to humankind's fallen sin nature, obviously. But..and it's a big BUT..those who develop mental illnesses through trauma are not sinning. They are simply damaged by what they've experienced. It's really not that hard to figure out. As a song by Christian artist Don Francisco says, "It ain't no sin to get the blues." You will find, if you should follow my writings at all, that I can be rather loquacious. In other words, I can go on and on. Like everything in my life, I'm working on it, but my learning curve seems to be somewhat slow. So..I'll stop writing this "First Blog Post" now and commit this website/blog to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not mine. It's His, to do with it whatever He will, be it great or small. Hope to see ya around!