Darkness creeping in....

This week I would say has "been a week."

You know those.
Best explanation would be LONG.

I have been very busy for work, getting ready for our church's annual celebration. It is going to be really fun, but a lot of work up front for me.

I have met with a new friend through our bible study... we have enveloped two new women, and one of the women's daughter. It has taken some minor adjustments to our group, where we meet, how we fit all of us around a table, and just getting to know and trust each other enough to be pretty real with each other.

One of the women I have really clicked with. We have some things in common, and we got together this week for dinner. We had such a good time, and a great time of sharing.

I knew God was in the conversation and in our sharing and how we related. I was completely at peace about it. Since then, I have found myself wondering how much to trust, how much to reveal, concerned about so many things that really God is in control of. As He demonstrated just in our first getting together.

I think the enemy has been working me over pretty good though since then. This whole week has had good things, and great things, and though there were stresses, it was really, really good to see how God worked through it all.

So why do I only see the things that haven't happened? The things that I have been hit by?

I was feeling sick, mid-week, to the point that I really couldn't eat very much. I just wasn't feeling good. I slept a lot.

However, there is something bothering to me.

What, you ask?

I have no idea.

But it feels like I am trying to medicate, anesthetize myself so that I don't feel something, or think about something... or maybe even to keep myself from drawing close to God.

But what would I be so afraid of? Afraid enough that I want to block anything out, stop thinking? Why would I not want to be close to God? Close to Him is the safest place to be... why fear that?

I suppose part of it, is the world, my flesh, and the devil working against me to keep me from really pursuing God.

I want so much of God, I want to be free of some things that have been plaguing me. I don't know how to do that and am at sort of a loss. Its more than "doing" something to refocus myself, though bible studies and stuff are good.

It's really about being.

I was going along so well this summer, practicing the presence of God, really being with Him, still with Him. Now I have found that it is very hard to do again. I have lost the consistency of it that I had.

.... and I find this depression creeping in on me....

It darkens the edges of my day, of my thoughts, my perceptions of everything around me.

It is starting to take more and more effort to do things needing doing. To get out and run errands, to do tasks around the house, to even have the motivation to go outside and play with the kids.

I have just wanted to curl up and hide. Sleep. Disengage my mind. I fought against it so hard last night at our bible study, that I was so anxious by the end that I could hardly sit still.

I am so very tired.

I had been doing so much better for such a long time, that even when I hit a road block, that I know is gonna happen at one point or another as God works on me at a new level, I don't want to write.

I think that is why it has been so silent here. I have tried to be upbeat when I have written, but I don't have that in me today.

So this is what you get.

This girlfriend.
Struggling, hurting, confused, depressed and wanting to run.