There’s a subject I tend to avoid, but a friend briefly brought it up during our study tonight and something she said stirred me and God and I talked about this the rest of the night. To the grocery store after study group, one the way home, unpacking the groceries, I was thinking about it. She mentioned that she (a new Christian) was wrestling with some issues, like homosexuality.

She said she still feels like some people are just born a certain way and they can’t help themselves. My response in the moment was just to give agreement, that I too had wrestled with that when I first came to Christ, but that I came to see many other flaws people are born with, but still have to overcome. What I didn’t mention, because I believe God hushed me in that moment for reasons all His own, was my own inborn flaw that I overcome every day only with God’s help.

I was born one way and in Christ was reborn another

My senior year of high school I discovered that what my parents referred to as freshmanitis, sophomoritis, junioritis, and now senioritis, was actually a psychological illness. After a note of encouragement in math class, I found that something was really wrong with me. It was some years later, after a wrong doctor/medication combination too many, and a letter from a social worker describing my birth mother’s mental health history, that I uncovered bipolar disorder.

After a few months of hardy research, late nights online and in the library, on campus and off (I was in college by now), I found out that I very likely had a low-grade bipolar II, or more of a cyclical hypermania, with symptoms appearing in a lesser degree and much more frequent and regular. There’s not much difference between it and my mother’s bipolar I. It’s like the difference between being hit with a big rock once or twice a year, or being hit with tiny pebbles throughout the day, every day. You can argue the severity of one over the frequency of the other, but they both suck.

But the truth is, not one book or article I’ve read, or doctor I’ve spoken with has refuted the fact that a very many bipolar patients are born with this specific chemical imbalance that causes a thought-process so unlike reality you might know. This in turn causes behavior with no hope of explanation beyond a declaration that Natalie is just weird, on a good day, and totally irrational on a bad day.

For example, I have a chattiness about me that is endearing at best and at worst, I look like I’m just the most self-centered person you’ve ever met, not letting you get a word in. I can’t tell you how it drives my groom crazy. :) The thing is, it’s not as though I feel like what I have to say is so important you just have to hear it. It’s that I have so much going on in my head that if I don’t get it out, to someone, anyone, it will keep building up, like a room full of junior high band kids on their first day with an instrument and it will drive me insane. I’ve had actual breakdowns from this internal noise.

My chattiness is a defense mechanism in a way. This is why blogging (and now twitter) work so well for me. On the surface there may be times I come off as me-centric, not caring about what other people have to say, but it’s really just me emptying my brain so I can actually hear other people.

We’re still accountable to God, even for our inborn nature

There are many other symptoms, some much more severe, but no matter what, I am accountable for my sin. Even though it’s technically not my “fault”, I can’t just sit back and use my illness as an excuse. I can’t say to a friend, Excuse my insensitivity, I’m bipolar, it’s just how I am. I have to apologize when I talk too much, ask their forgiveness, and work harder to show them I do care for and appreciate what they have to say.

In the same way, I can’t say to God, I’m sorry I’m not everything the Bible says I should be, but hey, you made me this way, so you have to accept me the way I am. Again, I have to confess my sin, beg His forgiveness, and work to fight my symptoms every day. And just like a good friend, I know He’ll help me in my fight, telling me where I’m going too far and guiding me back to the right path.

When I think about people with same sex attraction, I feel so sad for them, for many reasons. Mostly, I feel sad that the world is telling them what’s happening to them is perfectly okay. I feel sad that otherwise good Christians are telling them they’re not okay (it’s none of our business). And I feel sad that there are so many lovely people who aren’t coming to Christ because they either feel unworthy, or because they assume God will accept them in their sin simply because they might have been born that way.

Many bipolar patients and even kleptomaniacs might have been born with certain tendencies. In fact, all humans are born with a sinful nature. To some degree, we’re all born with a rebelliousness, a desire to do our will over God’s. But being naturally driven to do something doesn’t make it okay, it just makes it harder to do the right thing by God. It makes us depend on Him more.

My mom said to me snidely once that I need God, she doesn’t. In context she meant that I’m the one with problems, that she’s just fine and doesn’t need God. It hurt, sure, but when I took it to God, he showed me what a gift it was. Without this constant battle against my own mind (don’t forget my memory issues too), I wouldn’t cling to my savior the way I do. I wouldn’t know His unspeakable love and absolute joy that gets me through anything. There’s such peace in knowing I’m capable of conquering my sin, in spite of being born that way! And there’s peace in understanding that my own sin is the only kind of sin I’m responsible for.