Snapshots of a moving target

Being evaluated.  This is one of the least enjoyable aspects of being bipolar.

The latest update on my disability claim is that Portico Benefits continues to maintain that I am not disabled, and nothing is preventing me from working.  That said, I'm willing to accept that judgment if in fact nothing is preventing my from working.

To that I'm going through a second round of evaluations, this by the psychologist that does assessments for the Synod's candidacy committee.  A positive outcome of this evaluation would clear me to resume ministry in at least some capacity.  My hopes are that both evaluations reach the same conclusion.  What I don't want is for Portico to say there is nothing preventing me from work, so I don't qualify for benefits, while the church says that being bipolar is a significant enough impediment to being able to perform pastoral responsibilities that they cannot recommend me for call.  

One of the things that is difficult is determining the parameters of information that is relevant to an evaluation today.  The disability people have always been very limited in what they would accept -- "How is he doing today, or for the last month?"  They do not want a history.  They are not interested in how I was six months ago.  They only want to consider current status.

While trying to qualify for disability benefits this was a challenge.  Bipolar people cycle through moods, and it might be months (even years) between the peaks and valleys.  "Today's mood" is not the whole picture.  

Now that I'm being evaluated for returning to ministry, my doctors have a similar question to answer.  Do they render an opinion based on today, or on the whole history of my involvement with them?  Today I may be able to handle ministry, even challenging ministry, just fine.  But in that cycling is part of being bipolar, there is no guarantee that I won't cycle back into either a depressed mood or a manic episode.  

My hopes are that the medications that I am on have provided sufficient stability as to minimize that risk.  But the only way to really know is to be thrown back into the thick of it, into stressful situations that are known to be triggers for me, and to see how I react.  

But even that is a little misleading because I'm a polished professional at internalizing feelings, and not letting them get to me, that is, not letting you know they are getting to me, all the while they are eating me up inside.

I want to resume ministry.  It is what I feel called to do.

The best that I can offer by way of assurance to the Church is this:

1. I will continue therapy and accept the assistance of my medical team to monitor my moods, and their help to stabilize those moods should they swing out of the normal spectrum;
2. I will remain on medication to further help stabilize the moods;
3. I will be attentive to my own 'red flags' that are indicators that I'm experiencing depression or mania and seek immediate help if I am;
4. And finally, though I hope this isn't the outcome, if I can't do it, I will graciously accept that.  

Here is where my personal faith and piety also enters in.  I honestly believe that I can serve, even with this "thorn in my flesh" because God's power is "made perfect in weakness".  To put it differently, I believe that those whom God calls to ministry, God also equips for ministry.  

That's what gives me the courage to proceed at this time.  Knowing that God's grace will be sufficient.