My OCD Journey: Decision-Making

During my most intense years of OCD, scrupulosity, and depression, making even small decisions could be agonizing.  How could I make a decision without being absolutely sure it was best?  Some decisions I analyzed for days, yet I remained indecisive and worried about the results. 

One day in college, my paralysis of analysis was challenged when reading an article that called me to trust in God more than in my ability to make a good decision.  

I was convicted of how little I had been trusting God in my decisions, and I began turning my eyes more to Him.   I started leaning more on God's love and power to work in my life rather than my ability to make perfect decisions.  I realized He could intervene to work things out for my good and His glory even if made a wrong decision - what freedom I found!!!

Though I still struggle at times, my decision-making usually looks something like this: 

(1) Gathering the needed information 

(2) Praying about it, asking for God's wisdom to know His will

(3) Asking for wise counsel or further information if needed 

(4) Making a prayerful, God-honoring decision in a reasonable amount of time -- see note below 

(5) Trusting God to intervene if I made a wrong choice 

(6) Trusting the results to God rather than worrying about the results. 

Solomon wrote of this in Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."  

I've actually been having trouble deciding if this is ready to post or not.  I could stay up all night or wait another week to overanalyze it; or, I could pray, make a responsible decision in a reasonable amount of time, and trust the results to God.  So....here it is!

Note: 

One way that I sense decision-making may be taking longer than it should is (1) if other areas of my life are being hindered by the time I'm taking to decide, or  (2) if I'm  not obeying things that God has made clear for me to do.  For example, am I neglecting my children's needs because my mind is consumed with analyzing a decision?  Am I not listening to my husband well because I am distracted with worry over a decision?

Weakness in Motherhood

Motherhood is always challenging, but it has been particularly challenging this week.  One of my daughters woke vomiting before dawn on Monday. Most of my appointments, lists, and plans had to be cancelled for the next few days.  Though I tried to put my selfishness aside and focus on my daughter's very real and very important needs, I battled all kinds of temptations to be frustrated and upset.  

In her article "Lies Moms Should Stop Believing", Erin Davis writes: "It is easy to blame our children when days don’t go exactly as we want, but God’s truth shows us we can choose contentment in all circumstances, and that the frustrations of motherhood are actually blessings if they move us to press on in the power of Christ" (emphasis mine).

Reading this today was a much needed reminder to root myself again in the truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:  "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong." 

I don't think that this passage means that I am to enjoy the difficulties themselves, but that I can choose to rejoice because I know my loving heavenly Father is in control and is good. I may not enjoy the interrupted sleep of this week, but I can rest in His sufficient grace to carry me through. I can draw near to Christ in delight as He works powerfully in such trials of motherhood...and in greater trials that may come.

I don't necessarily ask for trials in life, but I am practicing embracing the trials as opportunities to see God at work.  He may not always change my circumstances, but He can always use the circumstances to make me more like His Son...if I let Him.

Tonight could be a night of interrupted sleep and tomorrow a day of plans tossed aside, but I can choose to rejoice in my God whose purposes are good and for my best.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living Beyond Myself

God performed life-changing work inside me a decade ago through Beth Moore's study, Living Beyond Yourself .  Wrestling with my issue of people-pleasing brings to mind some quotes from this study: "A powerful masquerading misery-maker is living inside ourselves," but "Christ in us not only guarantees life in Heaven but also...the astounding invitation to live beyond ourselves on earth" (p. 8, emphases mine). 

My longing to "live beyond myself" has grown while reading Edward T. Welch's When People Are Big and God Is Small.  People-pleasing -- or "the fear of man" as Welch calls it -- drains true life from me, and when I give in to the fear of man, I am being controlled by what I fear others think of me (p. 13-14).  I squelch Christ's life in me and so live inside myself rather than beyond myself.  And that is miserable. 

I hit a turning point after my last post.  My longing to live beyond myself is triumphing over my longing to impress others.  I am being intentional about not giving in to the fear of man, and I am again tasting the joy of Christ living in me.  I am convinced again that the hard work of facing and fighting my fears is worth it. 

Band-Aids and Diamonds

The fear of what people think of me has resurfaced as a daily battle. The renewed presence of this fear has discouraged me because I had attained such victory over this fear a year or more ago by God's grace, and I did not expect it to become such a major issue again.  I am tempted to think I will never conquer it again and that I cannot achieve lasting change in this area.  Can God's power really be perfected in this weakness?

On Monday's radio program Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram talked about a barrier to real and lasting change in our lives.   He characterized a typical problem that we all struggle with in our attempts to make changes for the better:  "superficial analysis  + superficial focus = superficial temporary change".  We fail to get results that last, he explained, often because (1) we face problems without giving a completely honest analysis of the issues -- because it feels too painful, AND because (2) we are focused only on changing our outward behavior -- when it's our heart attitudes, values, and beliefs that really need changing.   

I have found this to be true in my own life over and over again. With my current struggle of people-pleasing, it can be tempting to either (1) deceive myself that it is not really a problem or to (2) focus on changing my behavior without addressing the core issues.  Core issues like insecurity, pride, and selfishness. 

The process of real change can be painful, but as I consider the battles before me I am reminded that it has always been worth it to go through the process before.  Far more beautiful than any Band-Aid that I can put over the problem will be the diamond that God can produce in me.

My OCD Journey - My Greatest Fear

"What is your greatest fear?" My counselor's question ricocheted through my mind.

I had many OCD-amplified fears: contamination, disapproval of others, failure, health problems, God not really loving me, God not really saving me, and fear of the unknown.  But what was my greatest fear?

I eventually discovered my greatest fear was that God's grace would be insufficient if something that I feared actually happened.  To illustrate, even greater than my fear of a terrible health problem was the fear that God's grace would not be sufficient to carry me through it.

I desperately tried to control life to avoid my fears becoming reality.  My obsession with control only fed and intensified OCD.  Anxiety and worry consumed me.  Despite throwing all my energy into control, everything from minor annoyances to major crises still happened.  And when I faced a crisis, OCD disabled me from facing the challenge in healthy ways.

The truth is that I could not control away my fears, and ironically I was allowing OCD to control me. I wanted God's peace, but I still feared that His grace would be insufficient if I relinquished control to Him. I needed to learn by experience that "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

My OCD Journey - Vision

Making "daughter choices" (explained in my previous post) is critical to both my growth in Christ and victory over OCD.  The process of making daughter choices a consistent part of my life has been a long struggle, and at times the struggle can still be fierce.

Growing in Christ and healing mentally have both been hard and long journeys, captured in the "Process" poem on page 8 of Learning to Live the Spirit-Filled Life.  What has kept me going? One of the biggest motivators has been envisioning what a victorious life would be like.  As Dr. Mark Crawford writes in The Obsessive-Compulsive Trap: Real Help for A Real Struggle, "I ask my patients to envision what their life would be like if they did not have OCD....Because the treatment is not always easy, I believe that it is important for people to have a vision of what they can accomplish in order to maintain the motivation to persevere through some of the 'work' of treatment" (109-110).

My motivating vision includes being a wife who effectively encourages and helps my husband; a mother who competently cares for and inspires my children; and a friend who compassionately listens and serves. 


But the foundation of my motivating vision is an intimate relationship with my Creator.  I long to know Christ and to live life fully through Him.  I have found that everything else flows from being in intimate fellowship with Him.


OCD, scrupulosity, sin, and other things hinder my fellowship with Christ.  Fighting these challenges can be so hard, but He is worth fighting for.  

My Story - Learning to Make "Daughter Choices"

I used to struggle severely to make choices with OCD.  And soon after the agony of deciding had passed, I would be anxiously second-guessing my choice.  Learning to make good choices, though difficult, has been pivotal in winning victory over OCD.

A life-changing key to making good choices was learning to make my choices as a daughter, not an orphan.  

I make "daughter choices" when I make choices in accordance with God's principles.  I put confidence in the fact that I am a beloved daughter of God Who is perfect and loves me perfectly.  He is all-wise, always good, and always in complete control.  His commands and His promises are backed by His heart of love, provision, and protection for me. I rest in His perfect character and precious promises, and I can trust the results of my choices to Him.   

During my earlier years, I most often made "orphan choices".  Though I may have said that God was my Father (which was true), my choices did not reflect that.  Instead of believing that I was a beloved daughter of God, I made choices to rely on myself and to go my own way.  My actions betrayed that I did not really trust my Heavenly Father to care and provide for me. Many of my choices were orphan choices based on fear rather than daughter choices based on trust in God.

Page 3 of this link contrasts the choices I make when believing that I am a daughter of God who cares for me versus the orphan choices I make when believing that I am on my own to care for myself (Learning to Live the Spirit-Filled Life (v2-20-2011b).  Examples of son/daughter choices include "forgiving self", "acknowledging weaknesses", and "choosing to obey God".

Credit: The concept of son/daughter choices was derived from "Sonship" (http://www.whmbookstore.com/Sonship-Manual-Second-Edition/productinfo/9781936768073).