Welcome to the table, friend

Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?”

Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
Matthew 9:10-13 The Message (MSG)

Welcome to Living Free with Bipolar, a home for those of us who are just a little too gritty for the trite, clean lines religion wants to draw down the middle of our faulty hearts. Together, one bleeding, joyful day at a time, let’s find a way to live a full life, a free life, a hopeful life . . . abundantly more than just a perfect life. Allow me to tell you the story of how a straight-A good girl morphs into a mental patient who can’t shave her legs without a chaperone, and how a broken-hearted mama finds redemption in loving a broken-hearted child.

I have been swallowing lithium every morning and night for thirteen years in an attempt to find stable, learning achingly slowly that a diagnosis does not diminish my capacity to serve this world for good. Grace comes to me through spilt blood alone, from a Jesus I professed to follow but never understood until I split rock bottom, splintered clean out, needing more than a new banner and a perfect score card to fix me. Jesus speaks to me and to you in John 15: I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. And I know I am grafted to Him through his own doing and nothing of my own. Through this spectacular connection, I am given daughter rights.  I rise up with a new banner stained in His salvific blood and cry, If He can do this for me, what will he do for you?

What will He do for you, friend? Let’s discover it here together. Let’s write in between the lines of our humanity and sweat out our fears; let’s lay it down deep in our shadow valleys and endless wastelands. Let’s believe that our lives and souls are meant for more than clean lines. Let’s live out our nitty-gritties and find His twisted bliss. ‘Cause it’s all twisted back and forwards again, but I live one fantastic, brag-worthy tale of grace right here on Red Vine. This daughter’s got a nitty-gritty resurrection story to tell. And I’d love to hear yours.

Welcome to the table.

Humbly,
Taylor