Michele Gyselinck

I find it difficult to relate to what you're saying because it doesn't describe my experience of church AT ALL. And yet, Montreal is not exactly a small city. Maybe you haven't visited the right churches before making your sweeping statements? Come and check us out at Montreal CRC.

Interesting.  It took me a long time to find my way because my gifts didn't fit into the conventional ways of serving God in the CRC, where if you're not called to be a pastor, sing in the choir, or teach Sunday School it's easy to wonder if you can serve at all. Eventually, through my gift of writing, my experience with mental illness and bilingualism I found my niche, but it was a slow process.  

And before I ended up as Regional Advocate, and translator of sermon power points, I was baking desserts for Community Supper.  Now it seems that the denomination, or at least the Canadian branch of it, may find further use for my writing and translation skills.  

In the process I have sought God's guidance, though not as precisely as Rev. Muller, and He used my abilities and interests to guide me.  So for those seeking God's guidance about their vocational choices I'd say that He will use who you are and your skills and interests to direct you.  He made you the way you are, so He's not going to try to force you into some career or calling you have neither ability or interest for.  God doesn't waste his time creating people to like certain things and then forcing a square peg into a round hole.  Life might do that to you, but God won't.

I just finished reading the latest issue of Word Alive, the magazine of Wycliffe Bible Translators, and in it there is a devotion that should interest everyone seeking to know God's will for their lives.  I recommend it, but I can't provide a link.  Maybe somebody can find it?

Wow!  I hadn't heard of that one yet.  Although no disability is ever convenient, that one would take the cake for inconvenience.  Sorry, but I can't talk to the members of your congregation.  Have you asked the Regional Advocate of your classis or if your church has one, your church advocate to speak to them about it?

People are selfish. I guess the reason they don't want to turn off their phones is because having inactive phone makes them feel important. I hope that your church does not also use a computer and projector because if so, even if people turned their phones off, that technology would still affect you. Our church does.

I am not a missionary, but I wouldn't last long without my church family which acts as my anchor to sanity.  In fact, while I was completing a Bachelor's degree in Sherbrooke, QC, my work term coordinator who had taken me under her wing, impressed upon me the fact that I needed a support network to get well and stay well.  She worked at developing it for me there, and when my mom decided it was time I move back to Montreal, the First CRC to which I had belonged since I officially joined it in 1977 became one of its pillars.  

On the channel Animal Planet there is a series called Collar of Duty, and in one of the episodes a young woman had developed PTSD after having been bullied while in school.  She either found or was provided with a dog specially trained to help people with PTSD.  Just to say this is an option for people with PTSD, and they should not be ashamed of needing the help or of availing themselves of it.

I am a Regional Advocate for Disability Concerns for Classis Eastern Canada.

Yes, we all need to be more grateful and remember when God grants our prayers.  But when it comes to praying, I find that writing my prayers works best.  I write them in a journal because that way I can go back and check the date of a prayer request and see if it's been granted or if anything has happened since.  Also, I find that I don't repeat myself so much and am less prone to have my mind wander off.  Of course, if you write you have to do it with your eyes open, but praying orally never worked well for me, so I stick to writing.  

Some years ago, we had a prayer meeting in church and my elder sitting next to me asked God for help with her prayer life.  She felt she needed more focus, so during a pause in the meeting I suggested she write her prayers, and when I asked her how that was going she said much better.  If you need to pray out loud to stay awake, maybe you should consider writing your prayers too.

In our congregation we do a bit of both ; i.e. there is a time during the service, just before the congregational prayer where prayers are requested for specific needs, or in the Welcome and Announcements part, and we also share these in the church bulletin, so people will remember to pray for those needing prayers during the week.

Montreal CRC

As I read this post I often felt like saying,"Tell me about it!"  Although I don't have Tourette's myself but schizophrenia, my experience was similar. Mocked by peers and bullied by both them and my father for my difference, the onset of my illness was triggered by a stressful summer working the graveyard shift.  

Schizophrenia also has a genetic component to it, but scientists believe it to be a mutation at conception since people with schizophrenia don't usually reproduce.  Then again, neither my mother nor my father had the illness, but a younger sibling of hers often said while he was alive that he had an undiagnosed case of Bipolar disorder, and a cousin of mine through my mom's eldest sister developed paranoid psychosis in her 20s.  Both of these relatives took their own lives a year apart, and I considered it about ten years before that.

By the way, I DID say it was similar, not identical.

 Speaking of assumptions, a former member of my congregation, who moved west after he retired, used to say that "assume makes an ass of you and me."  He may still be saying it in his current congregation for all I know.