The push and pull...

This tendency I have to just resist God isn’t just resisting him.  Resisting Him the way I am is a sin… it’s out and out disobedience.  Not doing what God wants us to do {disobedience} is a sin.  I can’t get around it any other way.

I know what God wants me to do.  I want to do it, and find ultimate healing in the process.  At the same time there is this part of me that is digging in and hunkering down.  There is this push and pull inside me between what I want to do and what I should do.  What I know is right, and what I willfully want to do.

What I am really doing is hardening my heart against God.

Good grief! 

I mean look at what God did to the Israelites!  Even though we are under the new covenant now, can I possibly think that God might let me get away with outright hardening of my heart against what He is wanting me to do?

It’s not like He’s wanting me to do anything that is some huge feat.  He wants me to take care of myself so that I can heal.

Simple.

Straight forward.

Self-Care.

If I don’t take care of myself, my mind and my emotions and my spirit are not going to be able to heal the way they need to.

Eating.  Yes, I am having problems with food.  It started with really being sick every time I tried to eat because I was so emotionally upset by some things that started flooding in.  I got to the point in the past month where really I have been eating one small meal a day, cause that’s all I have been able to force myself to do.  Now I am finding that I don’t want to eat.  I get hungry, but feel better when my stomach is empty than when I eat.  I mean I eat when I have to, but when I do, my stomach still feels sort of upset, and doesn’t take very kindly to it.

I did talk to my counselor about, so she knows.  Tricia said to me that for a while you can control the food, but soon it takes over and you find that it’s controlling you.  I know I have to be careful here with this.  I don’t want to get even more unhealthy and go backwards rather than forward.  But at the same time, I am still struggling with the letting go that I need to do.

My meds.  Yes, I am still struggling with this too.  I have been fiddling with my anti-depressant, exactly what I tell others not to do.  Yet I take it one day, and skip a day or two, then take it another day or so, and skip another day or so… and on it goes.  Again, not the way I should be taking care of myself, not the way I would want my friends to take care of themselves.

Those are the main two areas that I am struggling with.  I talked about both of them with Tricia yesterday.  She asked me, focusing in more on the medication at the moment, why I wasn’t taking it.  It took me a long time to answer her, but finally I came up with a couple of things.

The first was that it was something I could control.  Like I am saying to God, “Ok, you can have there and there, but I am going to control this here and this one over here.”  Then I perceive that I have some control somewhere in my life, when other things seem so out of control.  That perception of control makes the swirling of the storms that come around me from time to time, seem less scary and out of control.

The other was that I feel like I don’t really deserve to take the medications that will make me feel better, almost as a punishment for the things that happened in the past.  I don’t deserve to eat because I did such things, and allowed such things, and I am worthless, not worth saving, and helpless, and the only thing there is despair and on and on and on the lies go. 

See, I even know they are lies. 

I am leading the Bible Study, “Believing God” and I still am struggling with believing, actively believing God that I am who He says I am, that He can do what He says He can do, including heal me from my past and present, protect me in the future, forgive and redeem me.

But how much of my struggle is just simple rebellion, plain and simple hardening of my heart against the truth of God?

How much do I have to go through before I finally give in?

I have moments (like on Sunday) where I let down the walls.  Moments where I let God control.  Moments where I feel the freedom of that release and submission.

But they don’t last long, and I find myself wrapped back up in the same old thought patterns.

Even when I am trying to fill my mind with the truth, even when I am getting support and prayers and encouragement from others, going to counseling, working through a Bible study to keep me closer to Him, there is this stubborn core of me that feels like a little kid. 

You know that kid.

The one who closes her eyes, plugs her ears, and yells “La, la, la, I can’t hear you….”

That’s what I feel like is part of me inside.

I don’t know to reach out to that little girl and pull her hands away from her ears and hold her and hug her and let her know that God isn’t going to hurt her.  That He just wants to love her and lead her into her Promised Land. 

To get to my Promised Land, I need to stop looking back and look ahead to the future land that is coming to me.  Yes, it may seem to be filled with giants and scary and too big and too much.  However, God is with me.  He is walking with me.  I have to keep on stepping out in faith and purpose to follow Him no matter what.

I’m not sure that I’m willing.  Willing to let go.  Willing to face the surrender, the lack of control.

It means freedom. 

That freedom means open armed, open handed surrender and submission to God.  I need to throw open my arms and stop protecting my heart and putting up walls between me and my God.

Oh God, break this hard heart of mine.  Make me willing to be willing.  Change my heart, renew my mind.  Break through this hard shell I have built up and help me to move forward again, and not go backwards any more.  Because you know, even as I pray this that part of me is still trying to plan how to hang on to what I want to hang on to.  My will, my desires, my ideas are what need to get torn down, because they are becoming such idols in my life that I find myself only serving you half-heartedly.  Bits and pieces.  Here and there.  Once in a while, as I listen to you and decide to do what you want in that instance.  I don’t want to live like that any more.  I hate the push and pull in my heart.  I hate the tug of war that I am feeling between doing what you want and doing what I want.  I hate knowing what I should do, and the exhaustion of try to fight myself, fight through the junk to do it.  What is holding me back, God?  What is keeping me from progressing and healing as fast as I did last time, as Tricia noted?  What is stopping me from working as hard as I used to, to get healed?  Because You know I can’t keep on going this way much longer.  You know that I finally agreed to have Tricia hold me accountable to taking my medications.  You know that I finally agreed to eat two meals a day, even if they are small and that Cindy is going to hold me accountable to that.  You know that I want to take the right steps.  But you know that I don’t at the same time.  There is such opposition and fear, that I know isn’t from You.  God, You know what I need better than I do myself.  Help me to let go and let You and find the incredible paradox of freedom in submission to Your authority.