The Annointing of Kevin Mills.

Okay, this is going to throw some of you for a loop, but bear with me as I try to summarize last week's events in a coherent yet accurate method. (With a little bit of funny thrown in, just for yuks...)

The past few entries have been about my depression and the various ways I've dealt with it. Well, last week things took a turn for the better as a total stranger ministered to me in a way I never saw coming.

The backstory...

A few months ago my Dad, Dr. Richard Mills, operated on a woman's eyes. She didn't have the money to pay for her operation, but the very same day that she came in for surgery, ANOTHER woman had called and told my father that she was so impressed with her own surgery, she wanted to pay for another patient's operation. You read that correctly. One woman offered to pay the exact same day another couldn't. (Can we say "providence"?)

Now, the second woman, named Kelli McCabe, is 82 and has a prayer / healing ministry in Tulsa. She has a prayer team of about 15 people who pray constantly. Well, she was so grateful for her own surgery, that she asked my father if there was anything he needed prayer for. And my father, being the humble, gracious man he is, immediately thought of... me.

He let her know that I've been struggling with depression for the past few weeks, and asked if she would pray for me. So from that day until last Thursday, her ministry team was praying for me. I say until Thursday, because that's when I met Kelli at her home.

Backpedal to Tuesday. I'm in Tulsa visiting my folks, having dinner with Dad and he tells me about Kelli and asking her to pray for me. A spiritual DING! goes off in my head, and suddenly I Just Know: I'm supposed to meet with Kelli McCabe. So I mention this to Dad, and he gets ahold of her on Wednesday, and I set up a time to meet with her on Thursday.

Now, I thought I was going to meet with her for a reason other that to get prayer for my depression. I was mainly wanting to ask her questions about how a healing ministry works, how to pray for people, and that sort of thing. (There have been numerous times God has led me to pray for people's healing, so I wanted to get a better handle of how I should approach such a gift...)

So I show up, we sit down on the couch (her niece was there to pray with us as well) and I'm about to ask her questions when she smiles sweetly and holds up her hand. "Before you say anything," she says quietly, "Let me just tell you what God has told me about you." Dumbfounded, I sit back and nod my head. (What else is a guy to do when you're in that kind of a situation, right?)

Then she proceeds. She proceeds to tell me, specifically, why I'm depressed, the thoughts that have gone through my head during the depression and so on, as if she were reading a piece of paper in front of her. I kind of stare at her and swallow silently. How does this lady know this stuff? Who is she, exactly?

A few minutes later, we agree to pray and she lays her hands on my head and chest and prays for my depression, my mind, my heart, my soul and my future. I didn't feel anything spiritual at the time, no tingles or hair-raising or hair growth or anything. But I was thankful for her prayer, nonetheless.

After this she asked me to kneel on the floor, and asked her niece to bring her some towels. She said that she would like to annoint me with oil, in preparation for ministry in God's kingdom. Again, what's a guy to say to that? No? I'd rather not be annointed at this time? I don't think so.

So I kneel, towels around me, and she smooths some oil on my right hand and fingers, then pours it over my head. I was glad I had shaved that day already, because then the oil wasn't going to get any hair sticky. Granted, that's probably not the right thoughts to think when you're being annointed, but I gotta be honest, here.

So she prays for me as the oil slowly spread across my head, drizzling down my eyebrow and into my eye. I try to retain my composure through all this, as my eye begins to sting and I try to receive God's blessing. Finally, I raised a portion of the towel and wiped as much of the oil out of my eye as possible. "Got a little bit in my eye," I smiled. "Well, now," she says with a smile, "I guess that eye's annointed now, isn't it?"

Nice to know 82 year old ministers have a sense of humor.

Before I left, she gave me this assignment: to read the book of John three times in the next 30 days.

So... what's changed? What difference did it make in my life, being annointed by this stranger I had never met? There are three:

1) My depression is almost entirely lifted. I'm no longer overwhelmed with the feelings and thoughts that used to trigger me into a funk. They still come, but it's like someone sprayed my head and my heart with spiritual teflon. Nothing sticks. I might get hit left and right, but nothing sticks to me anymore. The thoughts and feelings just slide away. Just like that.

2) I have a greater sense of peace, a peace that literally is passing my understanding. Regardless of how my day goes now, I don't have a desire to mope, run away or smack myself around. I'm... okay. I'm at peace.

3) Lastly, I pray in tongues now. Fluently, that is. I've been praying in tongues close to the beginning of this whole mess, back in August, but it's always been kind of stuttering... unsure of myself. After last Thursday's events, my prayers come out like butter now... smooth and fluid. Do I know what I'm praying? Not usually, but sometimes God has shown me what or who I'm praying for. What does it sound like? Well... kind of like a mix between a poor man's beat box and some African or Malaysian click-cluck dialect. It's strange, but it feels natural.

So. There you have it. What God has in store for me, I have no idea, but I'm slowly getting back to a place where I'm yielding myself to His grace and leading once again. I'm functional again. Productive. Hopeful. He has lifted me out of the muck and mire, and I'm standing up again.

It's good to be back.

Kevin

Psalm 119:105-112

Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it,
that I will follow your righteous laws.

I have suffered much;
preserve my life, O LORD, according to your word.

Accept, O LORD, the willing praise of my mouth,
and teach me your laws.

Though I constantly take my life in my hands,
I will not forget your law.

The wicked have set a snare for me,
but I have not strayed from your precepts.

Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.

My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.

The Season of the Belt.

If there's one piece of apparel I've never subscribed to, it's the belt. It always seemed so useless to me, so foolish. Either buy the right sized pants to begin with or don't bother. And if it's just for fashion? To say "Hey, I'm a professional-lookin' guy,"? Ferget it. I'll earn your respect some other way than how I dress (or don't dress... as the case may be for some suitemates of mine back at JBU.)

So in my youthful days I used to throw endless jibes at those who wore belts. And moustaches. In fact, I often said if you ever saw me with a moustache or a belt, you should kill me, because it's an evil Kevin impersonator and the real Kevin is probably locked in a basement somewhere.

Well, I'm here to make an official plea not to be killed.

No, I'm not sporting a fancy handlebar moustache for the world to see (you can still kill me for that, FYI). But I AM wearing a belt these days.

I'll give you a moment to catch your breath.

Yes, Kevin Mills wears belts now (and T-shirts, I should add). And all for the same reason: I done got skinny. Shed the pounds. (Like a second skin...) "But wait," you're saying, "He wasn't even fat! What did he have to lose? Besides hair...." I can see your point (especially about the hair...), but the fact of the matter is, I lost about 15-20 pounds within the first two weeks of my depression. (I was going to add "Bam! Just like that!" but it was neither "like that" nor with any kind of an exclamatory quip...)

The secret? Stop eating.

Christian Bale said as much when he prepared for his role as a chronic insomniac in the utterly-boring-yet-fascinating movie, The Machinist. The six-foot-something guy lost who knows how many pounds and became absolutely unrecognizable. You'd never guess it was the same guy who played Bruce Wayne in the new Batman Begins, yet it is. And when people asked him how he lost so much weight, he simply shrugged and said he stopped eating.

So when I first fell into the depressive pit, I found my appetite just wasn't what it used to be. Everything tasted like sawdust (isn't that in the Bible somewhere?), chalk, styrofoam, etc. I was just sick of eating. So I survived on nibbles and bites, just enough to choke it down and wash it with water. Sometimes the PowerBar would keep me going (still does, to be honest), but you can only handle a few of those before you long for something more... organic. Anyhow, two weeks later I'm putting on my slacks with the 32 inch waist and they fall off me. Boom. Down to my ankles. I kind of stared at 'em in disbelief. Betrayed by my beloved Plugg slacks. Whodathunkit?

But no, t'was not my pants that had changed, but my gut itself. Actually, my entire body. My face, stomach, hips and butt all melted by a few inches. After swimming for nearly an hour a day for 3 months, I lost the most amount of flab (and muscle, I suppose) when my mind petered out. Only serves to bolster the mind-body arguments you hear people making, I guess. (You know, how the mind affects the body, etc...)

So this is all to say please don't clean my clock with your glock just yet. I'm still me, I'm just a leaner, cleaner Kevin (inside and out). But again, if you see me with a moustache some day, please dispatch me as soon as possible. (Isn't there a joke out there? "Friends don't let friends wear moustaches"?)

Well, there is now...

Kevin

What's Up With Kevin?

Dear Faithful Readers,

Some of you may have noticed I've been absent from blogging for the past... oh... two and a half months. For someone who wrote pretty much every day to not writing a lick, I'm sure it was a bit perplexing for the lot of you.

Well, here's the scoop:

Since the end of July I've been struggling with a serious bout of depression. As in, depression so severe it's mind-numbing, debilitating, curled up in a fetal position in bed kind of down. As in, I spent a week at Laureate Psychiatric Hospital in Tulsa because I had reached a point where I was suicidal.

So I haven't exactly been myself lately. Thus, the lack of writing and entertaining and doing the typical dance of life that Kevin's used to doing. As of now, I'm doing quite a bit better. I'm on a decent anti-depressant and am having a decent day today, but there are other times I'm once again socked in the gut, down on my knees crying my eyes out.

Some of you are reading this with jaws dropped. Kevin? Depressed? No way! While it's true that I'm usually up and positive, there was always a day or two out of every other month that I was a bit down. Nothing like this, mind you, but once in a while I'd be sad. This is something else. I've NEVER felt like this in my life before.

Is it spiritual? I'm sure some of it is, but I'm equally sure that the majority of it is psychological, emotional and situational. Bottom line: life dished out more than I could handle, and my mind kind went on a vacation until it could return when the world was safe again. Even now, I'm maybe 70-80% of who I used to be, with the other 20% rearing it's ugly head every so often.

It really kind of stinks. But I want to start writing about it, not only because I find if therapeutic, but because this is a large part of who I am. I write. I live, I feel emotions, I experience things, and I write about 'em. I also believe strongly in having a transparent lifestyle, where my pain and my failures are there for the world to see and learn from, if they can glean anything from it all. I don't want to hide things just for the sake of my pride.

So here I am. Arms open wide, telling the world, now. My name is Kevin Mills, and I'm suffering from depression. I look forward to the day I'll be back to normal again (as normal as Kevin Mills could be, har har har...). In the meantime, all I can do is lift my pain up to God and ask Him to hold it together for me when my world comes apart.

Kevin