Where am I?

I just wanted to say that I am sorry that I have been a bit MIA this week… these past few weeks. I have wanted to write. I have wanted to visit all my friends. I just haven’t had the words to frame my thoughts with. I have had lots of thoughts and emotions… but no words were enough to put them into.

I don’t know that I have many words now. I had a hard enough time coming up with words for this last weeks post for our “Yes to God” study.

My heart is aching. My head is aching. I feel pretty broken. Frustrated with myself. Tired. Weary. Worn.

My body hurts, my mind hurts, my heart hurts, my soul hurts. I feel pain and am confused with why I would find this depression grasping at me so greedily.

I feel like giving up the fight and just letting go.

I won’t because I know that God has not let go of me. I know He won’t. I know that He will give me rest when I need it and the courage to keep going when I need to. He has not let go of me, nor given me permission or freedom to let go of Him. He has called me to keep going… how, I don’t know. I have no idea of how to keep going when I am so tired.

I have been finding myself withdrawing.

Praise God for a good friend who has been pursuing… checking her email during the times of the week and weekend she never would normally, and staying up late last night, opening a window of time we could talk… when normally she would be sleeping… talking with me tonight after a day of studying and time with God, sharing her insights and thoughts and taking the time to pray with me, pray for me as I collapsed sobbing on the kitchen floor.

Please, for those of you who will read this tonight and tomorrow… pray for me. I need to be able to focus tomorrow at church. I want so much to hear from God and I want to be able to be undistracted and clear-minded as I seek His face there.

I also am going to spend some (hopefully) deep time in the Word and study and prayer tomorrow. I am going to either hole up at the coffee shop, or if I get too emotional, come home and hole up here.

I really need to soak in God’s presence and hear from Him, not just talk at Him or occupy myself with stuff about Him. (if that makes sense)

Thank you for praying for me and for being patient and coming back here periodically to see how I am doing.

I hope that I will be able to write more soon… because writing has been a balm for my soul… a God given one, I believe. I hope that He will give me words back. Soon.

"Self talk, Soul Talk," Chap. 8; Look back...

Yesterday as I sat down to read this weeks chapter, I had no idea what I was getting into.
If you want to see how others responded to this chapter, pop on over to Lelia’s site and check out the links from there!

Each week, Jennifer has sent me on different paths, all of them being very important as I have finished my counseling and have been adjusting to needing to catch myself in the things that normally my counselor would have talked over with me.

This week talked about something that I have realized before. Something that I think is what my blog has, in part, become about.

Jennifer talked about how it is so important to look back to memories in our life and see how God has worked through them and in them. And how He has redeemed them.

“Reviewing our milestones gives us a chance to mark progress and keep on the right path. It affords an opportunity to remember.”

“The real power of any moment is fully realized when it is remembered. The experience might have been painful or pleasant, but its intensity and meaning grow when we remember and reflect upon it, when we place it alongside those milestone moments we’ve stowed away in our thought closets.”

When I was in counseling, it was a lot of time reviewing painful memories. Some of them horrific as Jennifer mentioned. Those memories were just horrible. Some of them so bad that I had blocked the worst of them out.

But, as we worked through them, a little at a time, God started re-defining them, re-labeling them. He helped me work through them, processing the memories so that I could come to terms with them, and helping me get to the point where I could see how He was working through them.

The painful memories are still that. Painful. However, I do know that God will work them together for good.

“He can make even painful memories profitable as He gives meaning to them.”

It has also been good to look back at the good memories too. The wonderful, amazing things that God has done in my life, the times of celebration, the times of joy I have experienced. Those things have become more and more precious to me as I have looked back at them. In that, Jennifer is right. When we look back at our experiences, they have purpose and value and they are part of our stories.

Our souls do need to look back and not forget what has happened in the past… not only to not forget what has made us who we are, but to remember what God has done through those experiences. How He has proven so faithful.

One of the biggest things for me that I never want to forget is one of the most significant ways God showed me how He was healing me, in the midst of my counseling.

He took something that was in my mind’s eye, a big black box that I was afraid to open. God took it and made it into a white box that wasn’t too hard for me to open. I was sitting in Jesus’ lap, and He took bits of my heart out of that box, and slowly was healing them together. I was held securely in His lap as He picked each piece out and healed it back into my heart… and then He leaned over and blew the breath of His Spirit into my heart, turning from fragile and breakable, to a living heart of flesh.

There is so much more to the image, but you can read more about that HERE.

Ever since then, I have looked back fairly regularly to that post, and to my journaling from that time.

Both have served as great reminders of what God has done. How He has redeemed my past, how He has himself restored me, and made me strong, firm, and steadfast.

This blog has definitely been a way to mark the milestones in my life, and I am so glad that you are going on the journey with me, and that you can see and celebrate the milestones with me!

"Self talk, Soul talk," Chap. 7; Calm down...

Oh I was (am) so much like Jennifer. I internalize everything. Every hurt or slight, real or perceived. Every time something doesn’t go the way I planned (there is that need for control), or even letting go and letting someone else plan… It has always led to anger.

I never realized it until I was in counseling and we talked about my being angry. I told my counselor that I didn’t “get angry.” I might be upset a little, but I just “got over it.”
She asked about times I had been hurt by others. Was I ever angry at them? Or even angry at the circumstance?

At first I didn’t know how to respond. But then I managed to say that I never really was, I was always able to rationalize why something happened and accept it. Eventually I admitted that I thought God never wanted us to be angry about anything. We weren’t supposed to be angry as Christians. So I wasn’t.

Not externally.

Tricia showed me how in reality, I was angry, but because I didn’t think it was acceptable, I turned the anger inward.

Because I felt it wasn’t right to express anger, and because I never had a good model for expressing anger, I internalized it all.

There was a chart that Tricia showed me that helped me understand it better.

One of the big things that Jennifer said here that ties into Tricia’s chart is,
“So much of our anger in our lives comes from unmet expectations and frustrations that we don’t have ultimate control.”



Tricia said that anger comes out of the feelings of fear, hurt or frustration that are unresolved. If we don’t resolve those feelings they turn into anger/depression. Anger/depression still isn’t sin. But if we don’t head it off at the pass, it does become sin by moving into hostility/bitterness. If we don’t deal with that level, it escalates into hate/self hate. That area really becomes the one where we contemplate ending something. Whether it be a relationship with someone else, or whatever, it’s wanting to get the whole situation, person, etc to disappear and not exist anymore. And when you don’t deal with that hate/self hate, you end up moving to the stage of murder/suicide. Rarely do we see people get here… at least personally… in the conventional sense of murder. But Tricia pointed out to me that it is not “contemplating” the death of something anymore, it is really dying. Whether it be a relationship, killing someone else, or killing yourself.

There are areas that God has left in our control. There are things that we can do to stall out this steady progression of anger intensity.

We need to find peace.

“Our trust in God is inextricably linked to our peace from God.”

Relaxing in the arms of our Savior and letting Him breathe peace into our very souls is so healing.

Oh when I left the hospital after being there for being at the self hate stage, and rapidly moving up… I was filled with anger, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Anger at the situation I was in, anger at myself that I couldn’t control my emotional reaction to things happening to me. Anger at the situations I had been in, in the past, were still affecting me… I mean how weak could I be?

I had to learn to accept that adversities and hardships. Like Jennifer said, life isn’t fair, bad things happen to good people, “accepting that reality isn’t the same as approving of your difficult circumstances.”

I haven’t been able to change all the circumstances I was in over a year ago. But I have been able (sometimes) to change my reactions to them. I have been able to start to turn things over to God and let Him deal with them. I can change me, and how I react. I am responsible for me. I can’t change anyone else, or anything else around me. I am responsible to God for how I react and live my life, and how well I follow Him.

Oh, I still internalize my anger. But I have started to find healthier ways of letting it out….

What are those? They vary from situation to situation, depending on where I am at.

• Driving the car with music blasting, so I can yell at God about stuff
• Screaming into a pillow
• Hitting a pillow or baseball bat as hard as I can against a bed (or something that won’t break)
• Going out and rollerblading really fast
• Going biking really fast (anything to let it out through physical activity)
• Crying is a good one too

I am also learning to turn to God’s word. I tend to go to the Psalms the most. Because my anger very easily turns to depression. So calming my soul starts with Psalm 42, “Why are you so downcast, oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me?”

I go back to trying to figure out why I am hurt or frustrated or fearful, what has caused my anger so I can deal with it. And I try not to condemn myself for my reactions, but instead do some soul talk, use those “water words” Jennifer talked about.

“Water words are full of discretion, grace and mercy. They don’t condemn. They encourage and cleanse.”

“Your soul needs the water of the Word to wash over your thought closet.”

Like I said, I am still an internalizer. I still struggle with letting others know how I feel. And it’s even harder when sometimes I haven’t taken the time to figure out what I am feeling.

This is still a growth journey I am on as well… and I think I will always be on it. I think I will always be struggling against the anger at situations from my past, and continually letting them go, or with ongoing situations or ones coming up. But don’t we all?

“When you have peace with God, you can have peace from God - the peace that Christ brings.”

I want to keep speaking words of peace to my soul, so that my anger doesn’t get out of control again. I don’t want to ever let it move beyond the anger/depression stage and into sin again. I may very well go there. I have recently I have realized in the course of writing this post. But praise God for His forgiveness and His grace!

We are all works in progress. Don’t ever give up on yourself. God doesn’t. And He never will.

Even when it seems impossible that you could possibly get that temper under control, or keep yourself from internalizing and destroying yourself from the inside out…. nothing is impossible with God. Keep turning it over to Him. Keep asking Him for wisdom.

Don’t give up. He never does.

"Self talk, Soul talk," Chap. 6; Look up, hope in God...

Thanks for joining me in the next chapter of our book, “Self Talk, Soul Talk,” by Jennifer Rothschild. If you want to join us in others insights, visit Lelia and check them out!

“Fear betrays; hope never does. Fear and despair make us quiver; hope makes us unshakable.”

“Rather than giving in to fear or despair, we tell our souls to hope. Hope will always be on your side, cheering you on and defending you. Despair always works against you. It serves what you most want to avoid. It deceives, manipulates, and eventually overcomes.”

“Hope anchors us because it provides spiritual grounding. Hope brings stability to every part of our being: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It’s something steady to hold onto when fear and despair rock our world. We speak the language of hope when we tell our souls to look up.”

I think the past few years of my life could be a testament to this.

I was almost overcome by despair. My soul was downcast.

When I couldn’t get my soul to look up, when I couldn’t talk to it like Jennifer talked about, God surrounded me with people who were able to point me to hope. They constantly prayed for me. They challenged me. They loved me through it. Most importantly, they helped me focus my eyes and heart on hope, when I couldn’t see anything but darkness. When I fell down, and spiraled down in despair, they raised me up.

Through them, I learned to refocus. It was hard work. It was something I had to practice at. Many times, I wasn’t able to refocus. My counselor and friends had to remind me to take care of myself. Sleeping, eating well.

Last year, around this time, I ended up going through a really rough patch. I was able to make an extra appointment with my counselor. The whole week before I had trouble sleeping, and wasn’t eating well. When I hit the weekend, I spiraled down very quickly, to the point that anxiety was making me so sick that I couldn’t eat at all.

When I got the extra appointment with my counselor, I told her how my weekend had gone. After we talked through some of the things that were causing me the extra anxiety, she gave me some bible verses from the beginning of Ephesians. Then she asked me to do her a favor. She asked me to go to a restaurant and get something small to eat.

It sounds like such a little thing.
Going to get something to eat.
But for me, it was huge…
Where my anxiety was at…
How I was feeling that day…
It seemed impossible.

But.

I am a good student and client.
I do what I am told to do.
Usually!

She asked me to take the time to eat a little bit, and while I was there (since I am a journal writer by nature) to read through some of the reminders of who I am in Christ described in the beginning of Ephesians, and write through it… pray through it. She asked me to take care of 2 of the legs of the table that Jennifer talked about. The “physical” leg and the “spiritual” leg.

It made a huge difference and I was able to cope much better once I ate something and spent some time with God. That night, I was actually able to sleep well which made things better too. Various times during this past year, my counselor would suggest trying things to help me sleep, or eat better, or to take a walk with, and play the kids. All of them really helped me to feel stronger physically, which made it more possible for me to focus on God, to read more and learn more things, and to better control my emotions and recognize where they were coming from, and any lies they were based on.

I liked how Jennifer described how she thought the psalmist was reprimanding his soul for being downcast. I know that I have read and heard so many times the idea that if you are a good Christian you wouldn’t be struggling with depression… because God is your hope. But Jennifer is right.

“Christians who have every reason to hope experiences feelings of hopelessness.”

“Despair won’t go away just because we ignore it, run from it, drown it out, or deny it. A soul in despair must be honest enough to admit the truth.”

I didn’t start getting better, and start healing, until I was able to admit to people that I was depressed and filled with despair. When I stopped pretending, and unmasked, only then was I able to receive help from others, and ultimately from God.

For a long time I didn’t feel any different, no matter how I tried to focus on God and hope.

But like Jennifer said,
“Even if telling yourself to hope doesn’t immediately result in a swell of optimism that lifts your spirit to unknown heights, it will serve to shift your focus. Hope makes you focus on the potential of something broader, someone bigger, somewhere better. That’s what you see when your soul looks up.”

Just this past month, I found that I was struggling again with some depression. It was on and off, hitting me on the weekends mostly, and I was unable to seem to get through it on my own. The first few weekends I just “white-knuckled” through. The last weekend, I finally gave in and ended up on my face before God. I suppose I did what Jennifer suggested about seeing what the difficulties could teach me. I focused myself on God, even when I couldn’t hardly read scripture or pray.

I leaned on the Holy Spirit and trusted Him to pray with groans no words could express.
I leaned on Christ who intercedes for me before the throne of God.

When I was “white-knuckling” it through the weekends, through the depression, I really wasn’t hanging onto anything. I was letting despair and fear take over, and push me into the arms of the enemy. I allowed myself to be convinced of lies that I would never really be free, and that I would never really be able to get by on my own without counseling or medications.

When I turned to God, when I leaned on Him, asked people to pray for me, hope took over. Though my feelings didn’t change right away, as I started to claim the truth, my feelings started to re-align with the truth. I started to “feel” hope!

My passion is to show others that in the midst of their despair and feelings of being downcast, they can talk to their souls, and speak truth to their souls. My desire is to show that there is always hope. Even when you don’t feel it. Even when you don’t see it.

“Hope will ground you, anchor you, and make you unshakable.”

201...

I don’t have much to say, except I can’t believe how far this has come.

God is so GOOD!!!!

Just over a year ago, I never in a million years would have thought that I would have started a blog.

I didn’t even know what a blog was.

I started exploring (really looking up a definition of a “blog” on line) and then found out that my best friend was starting one because she was going overseas on a year long mission trip and wanted to use a blog to keep us all updated on how she was doing.

I decided to start a blog as well. If only for her and a bit of my family and friends that I gave my blog address to.

I didn’t know what I was going to write. Maybe a few thoughts I had about things that I felt God was telling me.

I never thought that I would have connected with people all over the world. From Australia, to Canada, to all over the USA.

And here I am, still.

Over a year later (I started January 1, 2008 ) this being my 201st post.

I sure didn’t think it would come to this. I never knew that God would heal me as much as He has. I never realized that He would take me on the journey He has. I never thought that I would ever have a dream or passion again.

God has given me a passion and a dream and an inkling of something big.

I don’t know what that is, yet, exactly…
…I will probably elaborate on a later post,
once my thoughts are gathered together…

I just want to thank you so much for following along with me. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your advice and prayers and support. Thank you for sharing your lives with me, and letting me share my life with you.

I love to journal. I love to write. I love to share what God is doing.

He is an amazing God. There is none like Him. He is the only true and living God! I am so grateful for His active work in my life… for His obvious hand at work changing me and molding me to become more like Him.

I may not be my most eloquent at this time of night.
I may not be my most awake at this time of night.
Especially after a long weekend like this one,
full of God’s work and insight and vision…

(and full of toddlers and sick husbands working 12 hour shifts all weekend, and, and, and…)

…but thank you from the bottom of my heart, all of you…
…for becoming part of my family…
…part of my life…

You bless me beyond belief… you will never know the impact you have on my life.

I praise God for you.
Above all else…. I praise God.
Period.

Thank You so much God, for changing my life so much for this year, for the suffering and the pain, and the joy and the healing. You have brought me passion and given me dreams. I never thought that I would have those things again. Last year, if someone had told me that in a year I would be in this place, I would have laughed them off, and thought they were crazy. You are so good! Thank you Jesus for the new friends I have gained through this blog and for the people that are out there that I may never know, who follow this blog, unseen by me. You know any and every one of them, intimately. Thank You Jesus that You love them enough to call to their very hearts and souls and woo them to You. I don’t need to know who they all are, but You do. I am so grateful that You are the One who oversees everything, who coordinates everything…. even all the bad stuff, and works it all for good! May You be glorified through my life, through this blog, and through every word that I write and speak. Guide my every word, guide my every thought, and keep me safe in Your hands, no matter how hard my flesh might struggle to get out of your grasp. I want to be in the very center of Your will. Keep me there. Keep teaching me. Keep molding me. Keep transforming me. Help me to be a reflection of who You are, so that when others look at me, they see You. I want my life to be nothing more than a reflection of You. If it is that reflection, it will be more than enough.
Thank You, Jesus, for filling every need I would ever have. Thank You for being enough in every and any situation. You are an amazing God, and I love you.
Thank You Jesus.
Amen and amen!

"Self talk, Soul talk," Chap. 5; Awake, my soul...

If I were to try to go into everything that I realized from this chapter of “Self Talk, Soul Talk” by Jennifer Rothschild, I would probably re-write the whole chapter.

The other chapters were good. They introduced the topic of our thought closets and the things we put in there… how to re-label the things in there already… how to start taking the truth and stocking our closets with that rather than lies fed to us by past circumstances, the world or the enemy.

This chapter spoke right into a situation in my life TODAY! This very day, I was asked to do something, and you should have heard the negative self talk going on in my head. I went to the coffee shop and sat and got the chance to read this chapter.

Jennifer first talked about making sure that we weren’t neglecting our souls, by being attentive and daily confessing to God.

She said,
“We become sleepy and apathetic toward some of our poor choices and negative attitudes… we grow accustomed to the grimy buildup that coats the surface of our souls. And we begin to fool ourselves into believing nothing is amiss.”

Essentially we become deceived. We, by neglecting our thought closet and allowing in little lies and wrong labels, find that we are deceived. The things that are the most precious to us are pushed to the back slowly but surely, and they get covered. The precious is left to the corners, and all the junk is in the front of our minds, distracting us and keeping us from what is so important to us.

“Undeception” happens when we call, like David, “Awake, my soul!” We have an ah-ha moment.

Jennifer said,
“At these moments we are most alive… We need constant reminders of truth and a heightened awareness of reality. We must constantly challenge our souls to be fully aware, awake, and tuned in. If we neglect to do so, we’re in danger of forfeiting all that is most precious.”

I need to reflect on what is most precious to me in my life, and identify the things that distract me the most from those precious treasures.

I can be doing good things, but if they distract me from the things that God wants me to do, and keep me from my real treasures, the “good things,” really aren’t that good, are they?

She said,
“Here are two universal questions to ask your soul in any situation. Does this allow me to value my treasure? Does this cause me to treat my treasure with less value?”

As I have discovered, the enemy doesn’t tempt me with evil things to keep me from peace and success spiritually. He can use good things to distract me. Blogging, reading, journalling, TV, going to the coffee shop, etc.

When I become so used to the distractions around me and just “go on” with my life, that’s when I get into trouble. I don’t notice that I am being distracted, and the enemy can have his way with me because I am not on alert at all. I don’t pay attention to the “roaring lion” because I have become desensitized to his noise, and distracted and unaware. I open my thought closet to anything that knocks on the door and accept it in when I don’t have to.

But, as Jennifer said,
“But those thoughts are not yours unless you make them yours. I’m not good enough…I can’t do anything right…I’m just going to give up… These thoughts aren’t yours until you embrace them and invite them into your thought closet. If you do, you’ll find yourself wearing them again and again. But when you are alert and recognize wehre they come from, you will refuse them entry.”

I can totally identify with something else that Jennifer said near the end of the chapter.

“Sometimes the enemy is stress. Sometimes the enemy is my own selfishness. But sometimes the enemy is the roaring lion. Why fight against flesh and blood when the real enemy is invisible? Often the battle is spiritual, and we must fight that battle with spiritual weapons.”

Ok, all this introduction to get back to what I was asked to do today.

I dropped my son off at his 4K class. His teacher, knowing that I usually am the one who can pick him up, asked if I would be able to help her out this afternoon. She had a meeting to go to before school was done, so asked if I would be able to come and help her teacher’s aide by keeping the kids occupied as they got ready. She said the other teacher would help them get their folders set and all, but I just needed to sit with the kids over at the carpet and sing or read to them or something while they were taking turns getting ready to go home.

Inside I started to panic, but told her that I would be there in time for her to leave.

As soon as I left, I started to panic even more. The first thing I started saying to myself was, “I can’t do this! I can’t be in a classroom situation again! I am afraid. I am no good at being a teacher. I can’t do it! Why did I say yes?!” Now, this may seem like an over-reaction, and it was for just needing to sit in the classroom for all of 15 minutes. But if you are interested in knowing the back ground of how these lies first got into my thought closet, see here.

When I got to the coffee shop and started reading this chapter, I was just blown away. Talk about God showing up! On the bottom of pg. 76, Jennifer starts listing lies that the enemy roars at us.

The first one was “You are such a loser” with the truth for our soul being, “In all these things we are more than conquerors though him who loved us.”

Talk about hitting me square between the eyes! That was exactly what I needed to hear. I am more than a conqueror. And it tied right in to the verse that I memorized for these last 15 days. “Do not be anxious about anything…. And the grace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (that was just part of the verses from Phil. 4:4-7)

I knew two things right away. I had given Peter’s teacher the right answer by saying I would be there. I also knew that I wasn’t going alone, and that God had had me wait to read this chapter till right before I needed it, to give me that “ah-ha” moment, and wake me up to where the enemy was still feeding me lies, and I was still accepting them and putting them into my thought closet.

I have to tell you, I think I have this chapter almost completely highlighted. I know the last 2 1/2 pages are for sure!

"Self talk, soul talk," Chap. 4; Speaking truth to your issues...

On Saturday, before I had read, or even looked at this week’s chapter for our book study, “Self Talk, Soul Talk,” by Jennifer Rothschild, I came across a story in the bible that I have great affinity for. The story of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years.

In the past I have reflected on the length of her suffering, and on the rejection she must have faced from her peers, and the incredible love, joy, and hope she had when she realized she was healed… and so much more.

Saturday, I came across it, looked for it actually to find the longest account of it in the gospels. The verse that stood out to me was the same one that Jennifer pointed out.

“She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”
Mark 5:26

It made me at the time think of all the pain she was in and the weakness she had. I wrote in my journal,

“I imagine that she was at the end of everything and it took everything she had just to get her hand through the crowd enough to touch the hem of His robe.”

Quiet desperation.
After all those years, that’s where she was living. In quiet desperation.

I wonder how many people around us are living those lives?

I know that I was. I was believing lies that didn’t line up with scripture. I was trying to live a godly life, and failing miserably. I was trying to keep everything together on the outside, so no one could see the mess on the inside.

And then God allowed everything to fall apart, so that every mask I ever had was torn away.
Now that He has been putting me back together, He is pushing me out of the nest a bit more. Since I had felt it was time to end my counseling with Tricia, I really felt pushed out of the nest, and that there was a lot more than I realized that I have to deal with day to day.

I am blessed with an incredible small group, and several close friends that I can go to. I have a large number of people that I can call on to pray for me (many of you who are reading this are some of those!). God set me up with a support network, and a “safety net” to keep me from falling too far if I trip and stumble.

But I have been feeling a bit lost at sea.

I mentioned in my last post, asking for prayer, that I feel that God is really teaching me some things, but at the same time, I am under attack. God is bringing things together, showing me what this life is about, and the suffering that we all face from time to time, but also the joy and victory at the end of it all.

The last thing the enemy wants is for me to have victory and be complete and whole and healthy in Christ. He wants me to believe the lie that I am going backwards, regressing, failing and that I am never going to get out of his grasp and never find freedom from some of the things that hold me back.

Oh has the negative self talk kicked in this week!!!!
Girls, can I tell you, it has been a crazy few weeks!

And this week’s study was just what I needed to hear. I read the chapter yesterday, but was so distracted I could hardly concentrate. All I could feel was the emotional pain I was in. But a few things did register, and as I read back through the chapter a little bit ago, I could see the things that stood out to me, even in the midst of my pain yesterday.

Jennifer said,
“The woman with the hemorrhage lunged forward to touch Jesus, and that is exactly what I did in my mind. In spite of all my dread, my anxieties, and the negative rubble heaped up around me, I wrenched my gaze from my own crowd of problems and focused for a moment completely on God.
And it was enough to bring healing and wellness to my soul.”

Ok, so it wasn’t that easy for me (and probably sounds easier for Jennifer, when we read it, than it was for her in practice). But slowly over the end of the day yesterday, and the beginning hours this morning, I made an effort to give myself some grace. I did the things I needed to, started getting some things done around the house, and accomplishing things made me stop telling myself I was lazy and a loser. Because even if I felt that way, it was a LIE because I was cleaning, and taking care of my daughter and being a good mom. Lazybones and losers don’t do those things.

Then it hit me this morning that more than ever, I needed to take a more active part in this battle I am in. I purposely started focusing on God. Prayed out loud to Him. Prayed through some scripture, and a spiritual warfare prayer. By the end of that, a worship song had come on my computer (that I had playing in the back ground) and I dropped to my knees in my bedroom and just worshiped God for who He is.

Majesty, by Michael W. Smith

“Majesty, Majesty
Your grace has found me just as I am;
Empty handed but alive in your hands.
Majesty, Majesty
Forever I am changed by Your love;
In the presence of Your Majesty.”

As I thought about it later on in the day, I realized I did just what Jennifer had. I forced myself to stop looking at the junk that is weighing me down, and instead focused my gaze on Him. I worshiped, which in and of itself will send the enemy packing.

I also love that Jennifer talked about the role of the Holy Spirit in truth talking to ourselves.

“God’s Spirit is the perfect Counselor. He is safe. He is wise. He is objective. He is absolutely committed to our ultimate good. And we can trust Him never to lead us off course.”

“The Spirit never leads us in ways that oppose Scripture. He won’t; He can’t.”

“God’s Spirit…stamps out ignorance, replacing it with wisdom and discernment light-years beyond our own. He’s a Mentor who teaches and guides with greater understanding that our own. Our minds need mentors… He exposes wrong thinking and enlightens us to the truth.”

Jennifer talked about how her own understanding and thinking ends up leading her the wrong way. She starts to look at something negatively and it really hampers her.

She said,
“I need God’s Spirit to lead me to truth. Leading myself, I don’t always end up at the destination of truth.”

Ever since I stopped counseling with Tricia, I felt bereft. I lost a friend (it still feels that way) but at the same time I felt I lost that objective person, to help counsel and guide me to make the right decisions that were the best for me.

This chapter just refreshed and reminded me that God sent His Spirit to help us… to help me. The Holy Spirit isn’t some after thought, but God’s Spirit, living deep within us, longing to speak wisdom, and give guidance if we will only listen.

Today, I was able to talk to one of my friends, Sandy, about the spiritual attack I have felt I’ve been under. I think, though I didn’t realize it at the time, she picked up on some of my confusion about why this was all happening now. I mean, I know why, but going from head knowledge to really understanding it and trusting God in it, is a bit harder.

She mentioned something that changed my perspective some, and made a difference for me. She said that maybe God was allowing some of this through, to allow me to go through it. To test my faith, refine it, prove it genuine by going through the flames.

It gave me a new perspective. I don’t need to just “sit” here and feel the oppression, and try to deal with the depression and react to it. I can look at this all as a chance to improve my skills. As a test to see how much I have learned this year. This gives me a chance to strengthen my muscles of trust and joy in God. No matter what the circumstances are, is my faith being strengthened enough to really hang on when I have to?

So, in speaking truth to my issues… God is with me. God is more than enough. He has given me His mercy and grace. He has given me His Spirit to guide and counsel me like no one else can. This is the truth. My feelings and immediate emotions may tell me otherwise, from moment to moment, but I will keep speaking truth to my soul, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit leading me.

Themes... re-occurring.. again, and again...

Well, here we go again!

God seems to be pulling things together to get my attention.

I don’t know what for, but He has my attention.
He really got it today with back to back things.

Through this past week’s sermon He really caught my attention, making me aware of some of my fears that might hold me back from Him. He showed me that He is truly glorified and shown beautiful when we are in the midst of suffering, and we still choose to praise Him and say out loud and in our hearts, that HE IS ENOUGH. HE IS SUFFICIENT.

So that was the start of me working through some things this week.

All throughout this week, God has been giving me scriptures at just the right time. Just as I needed it, I would remember scripture, or read something that I needed to keep me focused on Jesus and not my fears.

Today I was given some more realizations in two devotionals that I did.

The first one was by Beth Moore. A devotional based on the life of John. She talked about how John was with Jesus in the best and worst situations. From a human point of view. Yet when human reasoning would be screaming to run away, John went into the inner courts to be near Jesus. He stood at the foot of the cross as Jesus died. He clung, even when it made no sense.

My prayer when I was done with that devotional, was that I want to be able to live a life of someone who clings to God even when it doesn’t make sense in the world’s eyes. I want to cling to Jesus. In the best of times, and in the times when all my humanness screams to run away, and stop trusting, because it will never work out.

Clinging to Him.

Then I got the Proverbs 31 devotional for today. The author basically talked about what her 2 biggest fears were. And how she prayed they would never happen. Then she found herself living in the very middle of them.

She said,
“Not only is He near us, He is working things out, growing our faith and our character as we wrestle with our fears and learn to accept His will. While we can’t understand why He allows our fears to materialize, we later realize that we have come to know Him in a whole new way through them. He is our reward for persevering.”

Talk about hitting the nail on the head! Talk about pounding the point home!

OK, God, I get it.

Well, so I don’t really get it yet, but He has my attention for sure.

I don’t know whether He is reminding me of these things now because I have come through so much. He is reminding me that I landed in most of my worst fears, and yet He was there through it all. Maybe He is trying to get me to focus on not the pain from the past, but how He brought me out of it. How I have grown through and because of it.

Maybe He is reminding me of these things because of the struggles I am in now. He wants to remind me to continue to focus on Him despite the enemy’s attacks and lies and fears that are assailing me. Maybe He is bringing these things up to help me persevere through the present trials.

Then He could me trying to teach me things to give me a hand hold for the future. He may be working on teaching me things so that I will be better equipped to deal with the fears and trials down the road.

It probably is a combination of all three.

After today, that pattern is unmistakable. Whatever the reason, if I ever know or not, I don’t suppose it really matters. It doesn’t really matter. Because God is more interested in growing me, and growing you, than giving us the answers our human understanding wants to know.

He wants us to, in all circumstances, praise Him.
He wants us to, in all circumstances, glorify Him.
He wants us to, in all circumstances, honor Him.
He wants us to, in all circumstances, love Him.
He wants us to, in all circumstances…

Cling to HIM.
NOTHING else.
NO ONE else.
Just HIM.
Because.
HE IS ENOUGH.

Here is a short video that our pastor shared at the beginning of last week’s sermon. I pray that it touches you as much as it did me.



Did you catch that?

“God is most glorified in you, when you are the most satisfied in Him, in the midst of loss, not prosperity.”

That’s what I want. In the midst of loss, in the midst of suffering. I want God to be glorified, because I am satisfied in HIM not in anything else… only HIM.

Jesus is planting that desire in my heart. I am fearful that He will have me live it out. But at the same time, if He does, He is still enough. I want to glorify Him with my life. I want to show others around me that no matter what, God is enough.

I want to share my story of what I have come through with others, not to magnify me… but to magnify and glorify and honor God. Because HE brought me out of the darkness and into His wonderful light.

I tell you, there is nothing better than seeing the light of day, than feeling the fresh air on my face, than rejoicing in freedom… except for knowing that it was God who got me there.
No one else. Not my doctors, not my family or friends, not my counselor, not my own strength and perseverance.

God used all those things as tools.
But God was the one who got me there.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above ye heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
AMEN!!!

Under attack and standing firm...

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I feel like God is telling me that this year is going to be one of learning, growth, and yes, some struggling.

I think there is going to be a lot of struggling and maybe even suffering. It is something that I am not necessarily looking forward to, but there it is. That is part of what comes with being a Christian.

I know that the enemy doesn’t like it when we start focusing on God, and trying to grow closer to Him. I have already found myself under attack in a few different ways.

On Sunday our pastor talked about suffering and fears out of 1 Peter 3:13-17.
“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give and answer to everyone who asks you do give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ my be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good that for doing evil.”

Our pastor talked about how, for the most part, we aren’t persecuted for our faith the way the Christians were that Peter was writing to. But the biggest thing that non-believers have a problem with, is why do good people suffer… why does God allow that?

Those are questions we can’t answer. We don’t have the answer, and maybe we never will. But we take each step, day by day, saying “yes” to God, and trusting Him.

It isn’t easy.

Because the verses say not to be frightened. That is difficult, because as we seek to follow God, we get hit with many fears. What will happen if….. ? What if….. ? God, I can’t handle it if….. you fill in the blanks.

This was a hard sermon for me.

I feel like God is calling me to go deeper with Him as He prepares me for something. I don’t know what that something might be. I have no clue. I just know I have the desire to share with others the miracle God has worked in my life and the freedom I have experienced.

One thing I do know. The enemy doesn’t want that news spread.

And he wants to gain me back as his captive.
He has been trying.
Through fear.
A lot of fear.

As I listened to the sermon I heard several things.

“If there is suffering in your life, it may not be because you are doing something wrong, but because you are doing something right.”

“Suffering sets us free from other God’s in our lives.”

“God is the most glorified in you when you are the most satisfied in Him in the midst of significant loss and pain.”

What if you have a huge fear… that you lose a family member, a child or a spouse. And then you find yourself in the midst of the very situation you fear. That fear becomes a reality. You can discover that in the midst of that heartache and pain, the devastation, that God is right there with you, walking with you, and He is sufficient. He is enough.

There were 2 questions that were asked at the end of the sermon.
1. What have you heard today from God?
My answer: “Has God asked me to release something so that I can enjoy Christ to a greater degree as Lord?”
2. In obedience to You as my Master I will….
My answer: “I will continue to follow deeper into You, even if I feel like I am losing some significant relationships in my life.”

My answers, especially to #2 were made with much fear and trembling. I felt like I was going to come unglued. I asked God to speak to me just before the sermon. Well, He did.

I managed to make it to the lobby of the church, and fell apart at I spoke out loud to Cindy a specific instance or two that I was afraid of. The fear of following God in spite of that stuff really was shaking me. I turned my back on the lobby as I started to cry… and fall apart. Cindy gave me a fierce hug with her free arm, and literally was almost holding me up as I collapsed sobbing onto her shoulder.

I was finally able to compose myself and get through the rest of church.

I got home, changed and went to the coffee shop.

Once there, I found a quiet, private corner, turned on some praise music. Then I proceeded to cry on and off all afternoon, begging God not to let my fears come to pass. Over and over, I heard:

“My child, I will be enough, even if it does come to pass. Do you trust me in that?”
“My daughter, some things may be stripped away. Will your heart still choose to bless my name?”

I came to the end of that day, with my head pounding, my eyes sore and puffy, exhausted.
But I came with a decision. One that I guess I had already made, but all the fears associated were now hitting me.

I have to follow God wherever He is leading. I need to say “yes” to Him. I need to get to know Him better. I need to spend more time in His word, talking to Him, listening to Him, sharing my life with Him. I need to become better armed to fight the enemy, and more able to hear his subtle lies.

I think I was under major spiritual attack on Sunday to be so overwhelmed by those fears. I am still concerned, but not as fearful as before. Remember, I am not to be frightened but in my heart set apart Christ as Lord. I need to fear God above anything else and then I will be able to keep all the other fears in their place.

I found myself under attack today. Not with fear, but with blatant, outright, horrible thoughts. Just thoughts that were so obviously planted by the enemy that I was able to immediately turn my back on them.

I talked with Cindy today, and she said that she experienced the same type of thing.

It isn’t just me. It is any of us who are determined to seek God, and make Him our all in all this year, and for all our lives, no matter what situations or sufferings or tribulations we may find ourselves in. We are all going to find that the enemy is going to try to attack us at any and every turn. He is going to attempt to get us to give up and give in. He is going to try to get us to believe lies about ourselves and about God.

So let us all follow Peter’s advice.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety [I would add in fear!!] on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
1 Peter 5:6-11

"Self talk, soul talk," Chap. 3; Choosing wise words...

Over most of my life, I have found that the enemy has planted in many lies and many false assumptions. I have lived with fear, whether or not I acknowledged it.

Fear and anxiety and depression have been some fruit in my life.

The root? Lies I have been told about myself, that I have kept repeating over and over. Those are the roots of the roots that Jennifer talked about in Chapter 3, Choosing Wise Words, in “Self Talk, Soul Talk.” As Beth Moore has said, the what you rehearse is what you believe… the more you rehearse the problem (or in this case the negative talk and lies) the bigger the problem becomes and the more depressed and fearful of it you become.

The roots for me have run pretty deep, and as Jennifer suggested on page 36, I did need to seek professional help to get through them. Those roots were choking me, and no matter how hard I tried to battle them with truth, even with the help of others praying over me and reinforcing the truth in my life. I needed the help of a professional, Tricia, to walk through my life with me to get at the root of the roots, if that makes sense. I needed to really identify not only the faulty assumptions but what caused them.

Now I am at the point where I can see the lies that I am believing, the faulty assumptions, and slowly I am learning one of the biggest things that Tricia taught me. Or rather, I am learning to use one of the biggest things that Tricia taught me.

I am learning how to use the truth. I am learning to speak truth into every situation. It isn’t easy as this past week or so has attested to.

At the beginning of the year I felt that God was calling me to something new this year. Last year was full of struggle, depression, healing, joy, dancing in the streets moments, back to despair and just plain hard work!

I felt that He was telling me that this year was going to be full of much of the same, but in a different way. This year is going to be hard work. There are going to be the up and down moments, just like last year has had. But God is calling me to something more.

I have mentioned it before; I feel like God is calling me to press into Him more. More than I ever have. This is where my resolutions from the beginning of the year really kick in. Spending time with God, being in His word, memorizing His word, setting aside daily and weekly time with Him. All of those things are going to pull me closer to Him, help me learn more about Him, and help my relationship with Him grow more deeply.

I have gained more freedom this year because I have discovered roots and am working on choking them out. Last year I needed help. This year I need God. I need a deeper relationship with Him. I long for it.

This year, I need God. I have to ask for His wisdom in my life. I need His wisdom and discernment to see what areas are holding me back from more freedom. I need God’s wisdom in my life to see the lies, and to know the truths to replace them with.

Like Jennifer said,
“It is really just as simple as asking for wisdom and trusting that you will receive.”

Trusting God… trusting that I will receive what I ask for. Trusting my Savior to do what He says He will do. Asking for wisdom is a choice. So is trusting that God will answer and give us that wisdom.

I love that Jennifer said,
“He doesn’t just beet minimal requirements. He gives liberally. He turns the bag upside down. He lavishes us with wisdom that will benefit us and those around us.”

I also need to revere God… when I revere Him and treat His as He is due, I also receive wisdom. Because when I put God higher than me, and His truth higher than the things that I am believing, I become more wise. It brings it to a simple choice of putting God first. If I don’t put God first, I end up making other things in my life my gods.

The enemy would love for me to believe the lies. The enemy would love for all of us to be so wrapped up in fear and trembling that we take our eyes off of Jesus. When we start looking at the situations in our lives, no matter how dire they might be, rather than God, we are exalting our circumstances and our own knowledge and perception of truth. And that delights the enemy because we are taking our eyes off of God and neglecting to revere Him. The enemy is succeeding in taking glory and focus away from God.

I sure don’t want to do that! Do you?

“Until you reverence God most highly in your life, until you acknowledge that He is the standard of truth, you will never find true wisdom.”

The other thing I need to do is receive counsel from others. All this last year I had someone specifically for that, my counselor, Tricia. However I also had other people that I found I could go to and get input from, who would pray for me.

This year, I still have many of those people in place.

One very close friend has walked with me through a lot of things. I highly value her insight and input and her prayers. The wonderful thing, she is constantly pointing me back to God, so that I am not putting her on a pedestal. This woman, though she may not see it herself, is a woman who is strong (because Christ’s strength shines through her, even in her brokenness). She is wise and deeply cares about people, intensely desiring to draw them closer to God (and yes she struggles too, with times when the flesh rises up and takes over).

Even in her weakness and failures, her struggles and frustrations, I see God at work in her. I see God’s wisdom in her, and through her. Because she is constantly getting back up and trying again. She may have those times when she just wants to be “done” (just as I have) but she continues on. We are walking a similar path, right alongside each other. It is so comforting to know that I am not alone on this walk that God is taking me.

When I have had struggles even in the beginning of this year she has encouraged me. In many ways, just as this book has talked about, she has spoken truth to me, and then I have been able to walk away from her and remind myself of that truth. I have been able to engage in real soul talk.

When I walk with God, as I am pressing into Him more, as I am drawing nearer to Him and falling further in love with Him, I am gaining wisdom. Reading the bible, God’s truth, His word, gives me words of wisdom. The bible is full of descriptions of who I am as God’s daughter, as part of His creation, as set aside for Him, beloved and precious in His sight. Those are the words of wisdom, the soul talk, that I need to keep my mind engaged in.

Listen to these healing words.

Wisdom
is more valuable that gold.
will refresh you.
will bring healing.
will be pleasant to your soul.
increases the sweetness of your speech.
causes you to inherit honor.
grants you a future and hope.
protects you.
makes you strong.
(paraphrased from pg. 42)

“To get wisdom is to love your own soul.”

We are going to have days where we feel like the enemy is pressing in hard. But the overall battle belongs to the Lord, and He has won the ultimate victory! Now those are words of wisdom that will help heal our souls.

It may be hard right now, but God has won the victory already! Live in that victory!!!!

********************

If you are interested in following along, or reading any of the other posts on this wonderful book, pop over to my friend, Lelia’s site and see what’s going on!

"Do not be anxious..." What's that?!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:4-7

This is my new scripture memory verse for the challenge through Beth Moore’s blog. (just click on the button at the top of this post to join!)

Boy, do I need that peace right now.

I feel myself all tied up in knots, anxious about everything. I have been praying, but you know, when the negative self talk comes in there, I am really feeling like crud, and it is hard to speak truth to myself. So, scripture memory here I come!

I am going to keep repeating this scripture and Romans 12:1-2 over and over today. I have to replace these lies in my head with the truth.

I need His peace to guard my heart, and to guard my mind. Because I am feeling the pretty far away from peace right now. I have spent time with God today already, and have been praying and reading through scripture….

But.

I hate to admit it, especially “out here” in blog land… I really just want to run and hide. I don’t want to do today. I don’t want to “do” tomorrow. I am leading worship team, and am feeling very inadequate right now. I want to curl up in my bed, under the covers and go back to sleep and forget about everything.

Hmm, could that be depression raising its ugly head again?

I know that I can come to God with anything and everything that I have and that I am. I thank Him for all the amazing things He has done in my life this year. I have praised Him for drawing me closer to Him. I have invited Him into the emotions I am having right now.

Yet.

I still want to curl up in bed.

Why does this happen on the weekends? This happened to me last weekend as well. Maybe its hormonal! I don’t know. But I do covet your prayers. Please pray through the verse at the top for me.

Another verse I am clinging to is my anchor verse for the year. Who knew that I would need it so much?

“Oh Lord, be gracious to [me]; [I] long for you. Be [my] strength every morning, [my] salvation in time of distress.”
Isaiah 33:2

I am praying through that, because only by His strength am I going to get through this time of struggle. I am so grateful that He gives me strength. And not just strength in general, but strength every morning. I am so grateful that He is my salvation. Again, not just in general, but in time of distress.

He strengthens me for every day, so that in all things I am more than a conqueror. He is my salvation when I am in distress, like today. He is my refuge and my strong tower.

Oh Lord, I am in distress today. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I would be so anxious about everything and find myself plummeting into a hole. The only thing I can think of is that the enemy is trying to destroy my effectiveness. Especially since I am leading the worship tomorrow at church. Please guard and protect me. Keep me safe from the enemy’s attacks. Thank You that Your faithfulness is so great, Lord. And that You are faithful to ME. Hide me in the shadow of Your wings and cover me with Your feathers. Keep me safely in the palm of Your hand. Thank you that I am the apple of Your eye, and that You watch out for me every day. Help me to sense Your presence with me, and to sense Your Spirit indwelling me. Let Your peace pervade my soul and fill me to overflowing with Your love. Only in Your strength can I stand, Lord. Thank You for Your covering, and thank You that You have already won the battle, and that in You I do have the victory. Help me to claim Your promises for today, and always. Amen.

New Thoughts... and renewal...

What God has done for me the past few days has been really good.

I want to thank you all who have been and are praying for me. I know I am not out of the woods yet as far as dealing with depression, or learning to cope with stresses now that I am not counseling anymore.

I am in a transition time I guess.

I am transitioning out of counseling, and realizing that I can’t just “hold” on dealing with something until my next appointment, because hopefully there won’t be a next appointment. I need to deal with things here and now, using tools and skills I picked up from Tricia. I need to re-label lies that I have believed with the truth. Also something I started to do with Tricia.

Now I need to do it on my own without her prompting or guidance.

Now I need to listen to God for my prompting and guidance.

Monday and Tuesday, though I was still feeling depressed and not wanting to do much, I did start to feel better.

Then this morning I woke. And as I left in a comment on someone’s blog, I felt like God had been singing over me in the night. I don’t know what song it was, but I woke with a totally different attitude. I got my son off to school today, leaving my husband and daughter still sleeping, and from Peter’s school, went to the local coffee shop. My stamp card was full, so I got a free coffee, and sat down and stole about 45 minutes out of the day to chat with God. I journaled and prayed and just had the chance to refocus.

Then I grabbed my groceries, and got home.

As I went through the day, though I was tired, my whole outlook was different.

I don’t know if it was that I was reconnected with my best friend from junior high and high school, or the coffee and chat with God, but man did it make a difference in my day!

I know that I am going to still have struggles. I know I am going to have to battle negative thoughts. I know that I am going to have to battle lies and struggle with focusing in on the truth, or even hearing the truth from time to time. I know that right now I am in a growing stage.

God has me here right now to learn how to do things on my own with Him, rather than relying on someone else to tell me what to do next. I don’t need someone else to tell me, “OK… do this, now go here… OK, now try this, and now you step here…” etc. What I need is to listen to God and follow His guidance. I need to really listen for Him when I find myself hitting bottom (hopefully before that though) and learn to use His word as my weapon against the enemy and his lies.

No longer do I want to be the door mat for the enemy to walk in and just trash my heart and home. My heart and home belong to Jesus. I don’t want to open the door to anyone but Jesus, and those He has with Him. I want God’s truth to flood through my soul, through my mind, through my heart and continue it’s healing process that was started in the last year or so.

God laid such a good foundation for healing and growth, I don’t want to just let it sit there uncompleted. I want to cooperate in building on that foundation.

It’s hard, because as much as I want to jump ahead into areas that I feel God might be calling me to, I feel like He is telling me to wait.

I think this weekend’s bout with depression was a lot about that. I think it was a reminder that I am not out of the woods yet. I have a lot to learn. I have a lot that I need to work on. I have a lot that I need to continue to put into practice, a lot of skills that are still cumbersome and uncomfortable for me yet, that I need to work into my reflexes.

It was also a reminder that God is in control. He is the one who is going to help me learn these things. He is going to help me work on these things. He is going to help me put into practice the skills I need.

All my trying by myself will not get me very far. Only with God’s help will I get to where He wants me to be, not where I think I should be. There is a big difference there. Because I will never know His thoughts. I just know they are good for me. (Does that make sense?)
I think today taught me that I need to have a more concentrated time with God each day… each morning. More than I do now.

Oh dear.
Yes. Me.

See… my kids get up no later than 8:30 (and yes I know some of you are about to kill me when I say that). But I am a night person. It is midnight right now as I am typing this, though I will probably post date this, so that it publishes late Wednesday night… because my day isn’t over yet for me. I could happily stay up till 2am or so, and sleep in till 9 or 10am and be very happy.

However the earliest my kids have gotten up, and this is usually my daughter, is 6:30am. So that is a rather large window for me to deal with. That means, if I want any time, whatsoever with God that is uninterrupted, I really need to get up no later than 6am.

Sigh.
Not good.
A bummer really.

Because my words seem to come to me better late at night. But maybe if I can switch my clock over, 9pm or 10pm could become my late at night???? Maybe????

All I know is though in my New Year’s resolutions I said that I needed to start the day with God, and have 2 concentrated hours a week with Him…. I think it needs to be more than a brief 15-20 minutes of distracted time in the morning. And I need more concentrated time with Him than just “2″ hours a week.

What that means and how that is going to look, I don’t know. I just know that somehow I need to make it work.

Because, today, having that time to sit and journal, and be out of the house was really good. I was able to keep a train of thought and prayer going in one direction. I was able to have a latte to keep me awake! And I just came away from that time feeling really refreshed.
I want more of that.

Especially when I know that I am going to have more times of depression and anxiety as things, and normal stressors of life come up. I need to be able to cope with them and deal with them in a healthy way, and the only way I can do that is if I am really connected with God.
(and yes, for those keeping track, I did post-date this… only by 17 minutes…. I “published” this post on 1-14-09 at 23:59)

"Self talk, soul talk," Chap. 2; Renewing your thought closets...

OK, folks, this week has been tough.

Has anyone else found it as tough as I did?
Oh, I really hope I am not alone!!!

I can only hope and pray that I do better this week than I have done the last few days. With cold (and I mean bitter) weather in our area for the next few days at least, I am going to be dealing with 2 wiggly, confined kids, in a 2 bedroom house, which is small enough to begin with, until you tell us all that we can’t go outside cause it’s too cold!!!!

Talk about negative self talk… the trash that has been running through my head has been pretty bad. And I haven’t even realized it was going on. I just have felt a lot of the “I can’ts,” the depression, the uncontrollable urges to cry. Today, it was the plain, sad, “I’m tired so just put me back to bed,” ever since I got up at 6:30 this morning.

And I did. Go back to bed that is. I got my son up, Dave took him to school, I stayed up with Marina till Dave got home, and then I went back to bed. Literally, I did. I climbed right back in, and didn’t get out until 11:30am. My getting up was under a lot of mental protest. My brain was trying to tell my body that it didn’t really want to get up and that there was nothing I was going to be able to accomplish at all today, anyway.

In the middle of the pain I was in on Sunday, I read our 2nd chapter in our book, “Self Talk, Soul Talk,” by Jennifer Rothschild.

She reminded us again about how powerful our words really are.

She said,
“The writer of Proverbs tells us that the words of the wise are persuasive, that a person’s words can be life-giving water, and that wise speech is rarer than gold and rubies.”

and,

“…some of the most powerful words we utter are words no one else ever hears. The are the words we speak to ourselves.”

We pick these negative words because they are available to us. Our memories have them right there within easy reach. Sometimes they are words that we have been called by others in the past, that pain has sunk very deeply into the core of our memories of who we are.

Jennifer said,
“We’re taking dirty, ill-fitting words and storing them in the sanctity of our minds! We have borrowed unbecoming beliefs from other people and hung them in our thought closets. We have grabbed clumsy considerations and careless characterizations and made them part of our wardrobe even when they didn’t come close to fitting.”

Jennifer urged us to take control of the thoughts we have. We need to match those thoughts we have (and I am speaking specifically right now of the thoughts we have about ourselves) with the truth.

What truth?
The Truth.
Of God’s Word.

I have been labeled by words from my past. Words that I have picked up and accepted as my own from other people. Words that I have called myself as I haven’t lived up to a standard I set for myself. I could list a whole host of them right now.

I have gone through what Jennifer calls my thought closet, all through this past year with my counselor, Tricia. She has helped me identify big words that I called myself. Big lies that I believed about myself. She has helped me to, over and over again, line up my thoughts with the truth of God’s Word, and start to let the truth in, and kick out the lies.

At the beginning of the process, I didn’t even really have the wisdom to recognize the truth. I mean, I did recognize the truth when someone else talked about themselves, but when it applied to me… no way.

I like what Jennifer said about wise words.
“When you talk to yourself, do you choose wise words? Are they words God would put His loving stamp of approval on? Are they like life-giving water, or do they drain away your vitality, leaving you parched, dry, and arid? Words matter. We cannot risk speaking untruths to ourselves because of the strong likelihood that we will believe them.”

Truth. It is live giving.
Jesus is Truth. He is life giving.

When He used words,
He always used them in truth.

Even if He was telling someone a hard truth,
His words were gracious and His words were powerful, they had authority.

When we speak with authority about something, either to someone else, or to ourselves, that authority should never be harsh, or abusive, or condemning, but gracious and gentle… but those gracious and gentle words must never be lacking the power of truth backing them up.

The ultimate question is,
“Do you tell yourself the truth without condemning yourself when you blow it?”

Even when we have to speak some hard truths to ourselves (and I have as I have gone through this year) we shouldn’t be condemning, we should feel built up.

This is where I am learning. I need to learn to counsel myself with the truth, without doing it harshly. I need to learn to build myself up with the truth in my own thoughts and my own talk to myself. I don’t have someone (typically anyway, now that I am done with counseling) to talk to about what I am thinking weekly about myself. I don’t always have someone there to check me and say… “Hey, do you realize what you just said to yourself?” I have to be able to do that myself.

Just like the words others say to us, and the words we say to others have a huge impact on our lives, so too, the words we say to ourselves have enormous impact.

“You see, we all write on the surfaces of our own minds when we speak to ourselves.”

I think I was doing a lot of writing on my own mind this weekend. It took me nearly 3 hours to get to the point on Sunday (in the time I had set aside for me and God) where I was able to start to pray through scripture, and really let it into my mind and heart. Only then was the pain inside, that I had been feeling all weekend, able to start to come out… and moreover, only then was I able to relinquish it all to God. I was finally able to give Him the hurt I was feeling.

I have felt like I was, and still am, under major spiritual attack.

For the last week, almost since we started this study, I feel like I have been taking major steps backwards, rather than holding my own, or getting better.

It has been over a month since my final appointment with Tricia. I know it isn’t going to be easy going on “without” her. Though I know I can always go back if something happens that I am not able to deal with or process through on my own or with the help of a friend.

But since last week, my anxiety is up. By that I mean way up compared to where it was before. Even the last few months of counseling with Tricia, I was down to taking my Clonopin only once a day (rather than twice a day) if that. And all through the month of December I was probably not taking it at all at least 2-3 days a week. I was so thrilled to find that when I did get hit with anxiety, a lot of the time, I was able to employ one or more of the relaxation techniques I was taught, and able to process through and deal with the anxiety without medication.

Not so this past week. No amount of relaxation techniques (or even going to my “safe place” at Beatitudes) was helping me. I have been on Clonopin everyday, twice a day. When it wears off, I can immediately tell. My stomach starts to hurt, and nothing I do seems to help, I start getting snappy with the family, and it all starts to go down hill rapidly.

The negative self talk has heightened even more since I started this book. In my mind, that means to me there is something here the enemy doesn’t want me to learn, grab hold of, or incorporate into my life. What do you think?

Here was the key sentence for me in the whole chapter this week.
“You can’t remove those hurtful thoughts, words, and memories, but by the power of God, you can drain them of their potential control over you.”

Taking captive every thought for Christ, by replacing the lie with the truth, relabeling the old with the new. That is the soul-talk that Jennifer is talking about. It isn’t easy. Especially when I have felt hurt and broken, burdened and weary.

But I know my God, and I know that He can and will work wonders in my life… in our lives… if we surrender to Him. So, I am proceeding to start new tomorrow… with surrendering to Him. I have to. He is the only one who has the power to change lives, to change how I view myself, to continue the healing He started, to help me talk to myself with the gracious and powerful words of truth.

Heather is... needing to renew her mind.

I have a Face Book account.
My status for the day today was, “Heather is.”

Just that.

Then I added, “Tough day… all around… but the kids were especially tough.”

I woke up maybe on the wrong side of the bed. I lay in bed praying that God would make it all go away. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, deal with the kids, nothing.

I wasn’t feeling very lovable, or loving, or patient. I wasn’t feeling at all as if anything has changed in my life. Oh it was a bad day.

I know that what I was feeling wasn’t based on truth. I know that the enemy was probably really trying to bring me down. However, I just couldn’t see it till later in the day…. much later, unfortunately.

And the kids fed off of what I was going through. If they could challenge me on anything they did. They fought with each other, fought with me. Peter screamed at me in the face so many times. Then he realized that I was not going to deal with it. I was able (finally, with some encouragement from my husband who was at work) to stay calm. I just took him into his room, and gave him a “talking to” with something that would get his attention. After 2 times of that, he was done yelling at me. Then he was on to yelling at Marina.

I felt like I was in the middle of a war zone. I think I was. I was so grateful when Dave got home tonight. He got here about 3:30 or so, and as soon as I got our dinner in the oven, I took one look at him and told him I was going to shower and get dressed for the day.
Yup. That kind of day.

It would have been nice to stay in my pj’s all day, if that had been the plan. But it wasn’t in my plans at all. And I just didn’t have much fun with it. It was really too cold for Marina outside today… though Peter would have been fine, but I wasn’t comfortable letting him outside by himself. So I had two squirmy, stir crazy kids, with toys spread all over the living room, feeling that the house was crowding in on us.

That was the outward stuff.

The inward stuff was much worse… and made it that much harder to deal with everything else…
You know, after reading the first chapter of our book, “Self Talk, Soul Talk,” you would think that I would get it. I have been challenged every way I could have been. I really didn’t do so good with soul talk today… it was a lot more self talk, the junk in the closet being dragged out, all my fears and failures…

Boy its amazing how quickly I forget what I have learned, just a day or two later. It is so hard.

I felt today exhausted (not physically) and depressed, irritable, and on the edge of every emotion.

At one point I sat down in the bathroom, and just cried… and cried.

I am currently listening to some Beth Moore on line.

She just said:
“Everything we feel right now is a direct result of what we think.”

Oh my word, how true. It is a good reminder for me. It is the exact same thing that Tricia was teaching me. If I want to feel different about myself and my situation, I need to start thinking differently.

My irrational feelings are based on facts. But those facts may not necessarily be true; the Truth.

Oh, isn’t that the same thing that so many of us need?

All the thoughts I had today:
I’m a bad mom.
I can’t keep my kids from fighting.
I can’t even manage to get dressed.
I can’t keep the house clean.
I am so lazy.
I am so stupid.
I am unlovable.
I am useless.
And there were more, that I can’t even remember.

But it is safe to say that I really didn’t love myself very well today.

It doesn’t matter that God loves me no matter what (well, it does, but you know what I mean), I wasn’t feeling it today. I was just about in tears, sitting at the computer, and was reading a friend’s post, and it just struck me… She said that sometimes (like Leah in Genesis) we feel like a “3 in a world of 10’s.” I felt today that I rated maybe a 3 on a scale of 1-10.
It wasn’t because of a lack of attention by anyone else (like Leah was “ignored” by Jacob and desperately longed for him… until somehow God did something in her). It wasn’t that I felt God was rating me as a 3. I was rating myself as a 3… or less. I was filled with condemning thoughts, and I know that they didn’t originate with God. I know that they were planted, or improved upon by the enemy. He doesn’t want me to realize who I really am in Christ. And as I have learned more about who I am in Christ, he tries to redirect my thoughts. The enemy has tried very hard today to keep me ineffective for Christ.

I was completely incapacitated by lunch time.

It wasn’t until I was in the shower, before supper, that things started to turn around. It wasn’t until I started taking care of myself, by cleaning up, by eating something good for myself, by playing with my daughter on the bed, by snuggling with the kids during a Veggie Tales movie… that was when my attitude started to turn around.

Tricia always told me. Take care of yourself first. When you take care of yourself, by cleaning up, eating well, exercising, accomplishing one thing (even if it is one load of laundry), sleeping well, then slowly your feelings will change. You can’t take care of anyone else, until you have taken care of yourself.

My frame of mind will be all out of sorts until I am able to see myself as worthy of being taken care of. I have to start thinking of myself as worthy of God’s love (through His mercy and grace), and more basically worthy of being taken care of, and that I can take care of myself. Nurturing myself is the first thing I need to focus on.

If I keep my priorities straight…
God first…
Me second…
My husband third…
My kids fourth…
etc.
…I am going to find that I will be a lot better off.

I can still feel the weight pressing down on me right now. The depression is still hanging there. But I am listening to some solid biblical teaching, and I have had the chance to listen to some good worship music before that. And though it has nearly moved me to tears a couple of times, I know those are cleansing tears. God is working in my heart to break through the walls and terrible thoughts running through my head today.

I am so thankful that He is willing to transform me by the renewing of my mind.

I was able to start the day somehow with part of my life verse…
(and I paraphrased it…)

OH GOD, BE MY STRENGTH EVERY MORNING!!!
I need you today. I need your strength. I can’t do this today Lord, only You can.

My prayer tonight is that He will sing over me and renew me for tomorrow. I am praying that my mind and heart will be protected and guarded by His angels. And that my mind and heart will be transformed by His word and truth.

My heart is still hurting. My mind is still racing. My tears still want to flow.

I may wake up that way tomorrow.

However, I have the whole afternoon tomorrow to spend with God. I have a good stretch of time to rest in His presence and soak in His word, and His love. I know He will renew me and refresh me.

Thank you for allowing me to share my heart in this context. It has been a blessing to have this blog as an outlet. And thank you for your prayers and encouragement. They are appreciated more than you know.

1 Peter 3, submission and fear...

Note: There are exceptions to the blanket statement of “submitting to your husband.” I am in no way encouraging anyone to stay in an abusive situation, or to condemn someone who got out of a marriage or situation that was unhealthy. I am not wanting to condemn someone who has made mistakes in the past, or are coming out of any other circumstance that I can’t think of right now!

I am speaking directly to myself, in my own situation, and the way this past week’s sermon hit me. I pray that I have not left anyone feeling condemned, put down, or made to think that they have no choice if they are in a bad situation. My struggles are just that, my individual struggles. I am only speaking from my experiences and difficulties.

Please keep that in mind as you continue to read! Love you all…

*****************************

How do I describe the things that have been happening to me these past few days?
I am not sure if I can. But I will try.

I was very convicted by the sermon this Sunday at church. Our pastor has been working through 1 and 2 Peter. This week, he embarked, with great trepidation, on trying to speak to all of us out of 1 Peter 3… you know the part… wives submit to your husbands…

He said that he would have felt much more comfortable having his wife or another woman speak to the women in the church on this subject of submitting to their husbands. There were things that he didn’t address, which was good I think, because he didn’t want to stir up controversy, but he really wanted to encourage us. (He also spoke to the men with their part of those verses, but that is a completely different topic!!!)

Several of the things that jumped out at me was the reminder that our true beauty comes from a gentle and quiet spirit… from the internal things God is doing in our lives. He said that the passage about our beauty doesn’t come from fine clothes, jewelry, braided hair wasn’t so much about how we were to dress, but more about the reminder that those things are ok, as long as we know, and are convinced that our inward beauty is so much more important.

If we are ugly and contentious, bitter and nagging, criticizing and degrading, it shows through to our outward appearance, in the way we handle ourselves, our expressions, our attitudes, and the words that proceed from our mouths.

He also addressed the biggest thing that causes problems for us, when we are told to submit to our husbands.

Fear.

It is so hard to submit because in Genesis it talks about how the woman’s desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her (Gen. 3:16).

Truth be told here. How many of us are afraid to submit, because then we will be out of control? The situations we most fear are the ones we try to control the most. We try to control and manipulate our husbands into doing the things we think are right, rather than submitting to them and allowing them to take real leadership in our homes, and the subsequent responsibility and accountability to God that requires.

I know I have.
I know I still do.

I respect my husband. He has a hard job, yet he does it well, and with pride. He loves working as a nurse on the oncology unit at the hospital, even though it is very hard on him when they lose a patient. He connects well with the families and patients. And he typically comes home very tired and drained (he is an introvert which makes the job doubly hard on him, being with people all day).

That’s when the kids and I start in on him, all of us wanting his attention. No wonder he retreats to the computer to get away from “people” for a while… even if the computer is in the same room, he can tune us out.

And I know in those situations there have been times where I have been disrespectful, and not able to support him or give him what he needs.

Our pastor said that we need to understand, and truly empower, encourage and lift up our husbands. That they need us. He also told us that there was no way we can know how to do that unless we ASK them. Yup. Dialogue about it.

He said that we would be daughters of Sarah if we did what was right and didn’t give way to fear.

Fear.

It can really be our biggest trap. As I said before, we lose that control, in whatever area we think we need it, and we become extremely fearful, and start acting based on that fear. And then find ourselves not submitting, and out from under the will of God and the covering of our husbands.

As we went into our community groups (Sunday school) to discuss the sermon, I started having a panic attack. It was all I could do to sit there next to my friend and listen. I could barely participate.

I could already hear God starting to work on me…
…and I was terrified!

I know the biggest issue for me right now was trusting that God is going to provide for our needs. I mean, I need to feel secure and taken care of. I hate the feeling of flying by the seat of my pants in the area of finances. I feel I am totally alone in that area of our lives, and that there is nothing I can do about it.

God has gotten me to the point where I am able to trust Him in a lot of other areas of my life. So now it is time to work on this one. His provision for me.

I spent some time with God on Monday night, walking through some techniques that my counselor has taught me over the past year. I felt like God clearly… incredibly clearly… spoke to me through scripture.

Scripture dealing with fear.
Scripture dealing with my feelings of helplessness.
Scripture dealing with my feelings of hopelessness.

Scriptures to remind me that He has not given me a spirit of fear.
Scriptures to remind me that He is my strength every morning.
Scriptures to remind me that He is my salvation and hope.

I know that no matter what may come around the corner to surprise me, God knew it already. He took me through that processing the other night because He knew that another curve ball in the area of finances would hit me today, and He prepared me for it.

I am still struggling. But I know that He is in control. I am more at peace about it than I have been in a while.

I know it seems like submitting and my relationship to the finances has nothing to do with my relationship with my husband and submitting to him.

My insecurities in our financial situation, and my fear that God won’t provide, have made me very nagging, up tight. My fears have made me question everything that my husband has spent. I almost compulsively check our banking accounts on line. I have a fear of letting go of the control of the finances. It isn’t so much paying the bills. That Dave likes for me to do, because I enjoy numbers and he doesn’t as much. It is my attitude about it. The constant nagging and questioning and pushing him to do overtime. I am definitely not submitting to him here.

I am being pretty open and honest here because I would covet your prayers. I don’t even know what submitting to my husband in these areas will look like. But I have asked God to show me. I am trying to keep my eyes out for opportunities. It is a real struggle for me because I have a tendency towards controlling things so that I don’t get hurt. I feel like I can’t trust anyone else to take care of me, though I long for it, because they will let me down.

Now it may be true that people will let me down in the area of providing for me… and many others. But God doesn’t. He is my provider. I have to submit to my husband, work on living at peace with him, giving him a safe, peaceful place to come home to after work. I have to learn him better, and do things for him that empower and encourage him. And when he fails me, which will happen, I have to know and believe that God will take care of us both, and our whole family.

I can control me and my reactions, and my part of trusting God and my husband.
I can’t control anything else, situations or people.
I need to stop trying, and allow God to fill in the rest.

Submission. Not a word that has positive connotations in our culture. Not one that has a lot of positive associations in my own head. However, submitting to God hasn’t been as painful as I thought it would be. So learning to submit to my husband in everything, not just the areas I choose to, can only be rewarding, right?

Pray for me as I find myself learning new things, and as God continues to stretch and grow me.