I haven’t been posting much lately, mainly because I’ve just been thinking about alot of things.  Things that boggle my mind and evade any firm conclusions.

My husband tells me quite regularly that I think too hard too often about things that I can never completely understand.  But, I’m wired this way, and feel compelled to try and understand certain things as well as possible.  This series is a compilation of things that I have been mulling over, stressing over, fretting over, getting excited over, etc in the last six months or so, accelerated immensely by two books I have read in the last couple of weeks that have rocked my world and perspective on it.

I call this a cerebral series for two reasons :  1  I may possibly be one of few people who feel the need to delve as deeply as I do into the topics I’m going to talk about, so be forewarned about upcoming said posts, and 2.  what I’m going to be writing about deals specifically with literal cerebral issues.

I’m way more complicated than I originally thought.  My human-ness specifically,  not necessarily me indivdually, but that too.

Of late I have really been pondering human behavior, how mental illness is tied to it, and how do things like free will affect it.  This feels extremely important to me, as I have struggled for years with depression, anxiety, and adult ADD.  How much of my issues and behaviors are hardwired into my brain, how do things like environment affect me, and how do spiritual things collide with all of this?

The two books I mentioned, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Healing the Hardware of the Soul by Dr. Daniel Amen have made me look at the puzzle in a new way, but many pieces are still missing, leaving gaping holes of confusion and faith struggle.  He has determined that certain types of brain scans can give tremendous insight into the inner workings of he brain, in regard to mood, behavior, conflict, aggression, drug use, etc.   I highly recommend his books, but to warn you, if you’re anything like me, they won’t be light reading that you set down and forget.

While I have left his books with my head in a tailspin, I have drawn a definite conclusion.  There is really little place for judging in this world, because as Dr. Amen has shown over and over through brain scans, we are not seeing the whole picture behind a person when we just evaluate their behavior alone.  Second, thank God for Jesus because without him we would really just be screwed.  We can’t succeed by just “trying harder” and we can hardly understand ourselves, much less another person.   Grace is essential to us breaking free from fear and accusation.

Check out Dr. Amen’s books, and his clinics.  I’m actually going to one of his clinics for an evaluation (I’m tired of doctors “guessing” with meds and diagnoses that are given to me), so if you’re lucky I’ll post my brain scans sometime soon and you can finally see for yourself what the heck has been up with my brain all these years.  :)

And, when I feel completely overwhelmed with it all, and not understanding at all how God works with us through our broken humanity, this song brings it all back into perspective.

Seeking to fully live,