How is your sight?

DEFINITIONS:
PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
We associate PTSD with Veterans who've returned from war however PTSD can be diagnosed due to any "big 'T'" trauma like a car accident or childhood sexual trauma etc... There are 2 kinds of PTSD, there is PTS which is not a Disorder but curable with therapy and sometimes medications. The 'D' is when its a rollercoaster that won't quit.
ADHD-Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder
Back in the day it was thought that only young boys could get ADHD. Turned out girls could too only it presented itself differently. Girls are more introspective by nature, our activities reside in our minds for the most part. We aren't always bouncing off the walls like boys. I was homeschooled, I could listen to music, do math, and read my Lit book at the same time getting all questions correct and remembering the music. I got my first job at 12 and been working ever since. I am a professional multitasker but I cant remember why I walked into the bathroom. I was diagnosed in my thirties.
CLINICAL DEPRESSION- Depression often goes hand-in-hand with PTSD and ADHD. Its a sense of hopelessness, sadness, etc.. that you just cant get over with coffee or a good book. Time off from work doesn't stop it and the thoughts tend to lead to thoughts of suicide or, God forbid, actions.
ELCA-Evangelical Lutheran Chruchs of America formed January 1, 1988 based in Chicago www.elca.org
LMCS- Lutheran Church Missouri Synod founded April 1847 based in Chicago The ELCA split from the LMCS, both sects have vastly differing practices and beliefs.
PSA- Public Service Announcement. I am old, I remember PSAs on TV.

I live in a State that's largely Lutheran though I am not. There are Lutheran churches on every corner, like Starbucks locations in Seattle and just as popular. Some of the congregations are passing away of old age causing these little churches to die. Some, in the towns are thriving as the towns are pretty much ran by the church. In my town, the school, the nursing home, the banks, post office, small businesses all run on the time table of the people in the church. The church is not run by the minister, he just wears a robe and teaches a small part of a lesson on Sunday, he occasionally does funerals and weddings. He is a nice man but he is more of a figure head than a preacher. The Lutheran churches around here are ran by committees who control literally everything, in some churches even what the minister preaches. I was at work in a nursing home some years ago and I accidently happened upon an argument a couple of lady's were having at the bedside of one of the ladies mother who was in the process of dying. They were arguing about the most ridiculous topic, the color of the cover of the new church hymnals. One lady was arguing that the color should be red, she won't change her mind, she was willing to cause a church split over it, the other lady was arguing for blue covers with the same vigor. Apparently in that particular congregation the color of the hymnals was of life or death importance. I have heard of a Lutheran church in a small town in my area who couldn't keep a minister, this church went through eight in the same amount of years. They had one man whose wife was also a minister (don't get me started on that one, its a piece all it's own). The man was also a chaplain at the nursing home, we talked quite often. He told me of a split within the Lutheran church that happened a long time ago which created a divide in their religion, churches were now ELCA or LMCS (in my research I found even more of these acronyms but in my area these are the major two.). Its a sorted story about how the church split and if you are interested you can Google it for yourself. I heard of a church, not Lutheran, who had a major divide over who was going to be the next Pastor after the original retired, the debates lasted for months and months, dragged on and on until half the church left! I don't know who was right and who was wrong and it's not my place to say.
I said all this to bring up a point my own Pastor made a few weeks ago. How's your eyesight? The Bible says in Proverbs "Where there is no vision, the people perish:..." You used to see posters everywhere that said, "Keep the vision!" Everywhere we look is the message of someone's vision. Leaders have a vision for their country, Governors for their State, principles for their school, teachers in the classrooms, deans of colleges, business owners for their companies, you get the idea. Vision is important. Have you put it together? We aren't talking about physical eyesight for if we were, I could be in a bad place as I have terrible physical eyesight due to a stroke a few months ago. The stroke, however, did open my eyes, my sight is more clear than it ever has been.
I wonder, all the time, why God allowed things to happen in my life. As you will read, in future pieces, my life has been, well, not easy and at times a nightmare roller-coaster ride. When I was 24 years old a therapist told me that I had lived the life, experienced the hardships of a 50 year old war Veteran. I am 41 now and the hardships keep on coming. What I don't see however is past the end of my own nose. Our perspective is based on our experience, its not until someone else said something that I realized that my life was hard. To me, everything that happened in my past was normal. Our point of view is so important to us that we can't fathom another persons, we are engrossed in our own story. Some stories however, should be told. Perhaps mine is one of those, perhaps it isn't but that's for the reader to decide and I pray folks come along with me as I share discoveries I have made and lessons I have learned along the way.
Enough with that PSA, back to vision.
Do you ever stop to consider that time for God isn't the same as time for us? I have learned that when he said he created the earth in 7 days he meant a literal 7 days however the book of Genesis itself, the first book of the Bible, covers over 2,000 years! That's the length of time between the birth of Christ and the turn of the 21st century, in one book of the Bible that's 50 chapters long. Inspired by his friend, God Himself, the writer of Genesis, Moses, only covered the highlights of those years. Time for God is infinite, He is eternal, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8). God does not change. In Genesis God created humans in His image, in His likeness. We were created for His pleasure, we were granted free will. The human brain was created flawless, sinless, boundless, we were after all, created in His image. The brain was not meant to cope with trauma, disease, depressions etc...Man kind created those flaws in the brain, man creates trauma, man created disease through sin, chemicals, traumas, man created depression. PTSD is caused by intense trauma. I have trauma induced PTSD and Caregiver PTSD as well as Clinical Depression, and Adult ADHD. Since I also have no secrets eventually I will tell you the root causes of these diagnoses' and how I treat them without medications. In all of the evil things that have happened to me over the years, all of the "unfair" life experiences I have had I never, until recently, stopped to consider the "big picture" All over the Old Testament in the Bible you will see, if you open your eyes, prophecies told to individuals that the individuals did not see fulfilled in their life time but today we can look back and think, "ohhh, that explains that!"
My children, my children's children, are going to look back in my life and think, I hope anyway, that perhaps God allowed those things to happen in my life way back when so they can have this life they do now, these good things, this legacy. I can't see past the end of my own nose but God has the big picture. Sometimes I wish He would share His plans with me but perhaps He doesn't because if I knew what my life was going to be perhaps I would get bored and not want to live it therefore ruining this great thing in the future with my short sidedness.
Back to those hymnals, does it matter what color the covers were? Of course not, those women were being short sided, they need spiritual glasses, they have poor vision. The Lutheran church split all those years ago or the other church split, do these things matter, do they have eternal value? No, not even a little. Both of those things happened due to disagreements, not Bible doctrine, just folks needing spiritual glasses. I have learned how to determine any only put effort into things that have eternal value. People have eternal value, people matter. It does not matter if you are black, white, purple, yellow, red or green, you are an image bearer of God, you matter, your life matters.
This is Learning as I Go.