This morning I feel different, I feel good, I feel new. I know I can not base everything on my feelings and they do come and go, but I am thankful for it in this moment.
I am going to try to attempt to get out all that has been going on, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
My mom has been fasting for me for the past 2 weeks so far and it has felt intense, both good and bad. I am more aware of the spiritual, both God and also the constant barrage of thoughts that are trying to lie there way into my head. Rather, the lies I have been listening to and also believing without question for some time now. I feel that perhaps they are less now because I am aware of them or I try to bring truth to my thoughts or just say Jesus, to take the torment away in the moment. I am trying to listen to any teaching I can get my hands on and keeping worship on.
My greatest prayer is that I will love Jesus with all my heart and have an unquenchable thirst for His word. Being in a place of trying to receive from Him and to stop trying to earn some sort of conditional love is a strange and hard place to be in some ways, but in other ways it makes me love Him and feel so incredibly grateful to Him for being for me and giving to me what I can not give myself. Being the one with the broken heart, captive and sitting in darkness, my need for that Savior has never been so great because I know I want to be saved so desperately. I know He wants to, I know He will, I know He is. I am also asking Him to increase my faith and help my unbelief. Of course he wants all these things for me, what does Beth Moore say "stop whining and wishing and start believing and receiving". To actually believe that I am more than a conqueror and not to be anxious about anything, but in everything ask Him what I need, and to know that the His peace which actually passes all understanding will guard both my heart and my mind. This is the truth and this is the freedom.
All of this makes me love Him and need Him and see Him again in such an intimate way. This Sunday is Holy Week and I know the timing is not accidental. I appreciate and love Him and His sacrifice has always been meaningful, of course, but this year, in this time, it feels so much more personal. To feel my love for Him and not just know it intellectually.
My journey with Him is now brining me back into this trust with Him. Not that He has ever become utrustworthy, but I have just stopped trusting Him. I find myself in a similar position as I was in back in October when I felt like my depression reared its ugly head in a large way. My husband has a new job and its great, but they want us to move, like in April which is just a little over a month away. There is a plus side to this as I hoped for a three bedroom before the new baby, but this place they want us to move is 2 hours away. This takes away all my friends, my family, and puts me in nearly the same place I was three years ago when I moved to Colorado. No church, no car, and now a newborn and a toddler in a place I don't know. The whole idea of it makes me want to drown in anxiety. So, how do I marry all that I am learning, believing and growing in the Lord with something I am facing that is so hard?
I have met a couple times with a lady who just encourages me and helps me see what God is doing in my life and it has been really helpful in this journey. She encouraged me to take to the Lord my needs, tell him what I think I need. She asked me if I did that. I told her I didn't because I feel like He already knows. Yet as I write this and think about it I am afraid to ask Him for the fear of Him saying no, and feeling rejected. I think this is one of my deepest fears, rejection. And how I feel in the past few years I have asked for things and the answers has been...no. Ouch. But then I reflect on how He is saving me, how He is good, all that He is doing, how can I not trust Him, even in staring in the face of what might be considered my greatest current fear...the isolation that triggers my depression.
So this is where I am right now, both good steps forward along with questions and concerns and I suppose the opportunity to enter into a deeper place of trust with the Lord by asking Him for what I think I need or what I think I want or telling Him my fears. So, I will try....
Friday, March 22, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
One day at a time...
Here I am, trying to write again.
I still don't feel like I want to make this public. A place where people can validate me or my feelings. Not that this is bad, but I feel like I am in a time of waiting, receiving, and stillness.
This is something I feel like God has asked for me for a while.
I am on what feels like a very long and hard journey. I keep thinking I am nearing the end, but then it just keeps going, and its draining and tiring and long and all of those things.
I was laying in bed yesterday, as I do a lot these days, and I was staring out the window crying wishing I could feel like other normal people out there feel. Like they are thankful for their lives, that they can deal with life, that they find things that bring them hope for the future, just not the constant battle that I feel rages in my mind.
I am 14 weeks pregnant today, according to my doctors first due date given to me. Half the time I feel disgusting. Just tired, sore, heart burn, this weird phlegm thing I get because my lactose intolerance has grown exponentially in pregnancy and my lovely body acne has arrived yet again. The other half of the time I don't feel pregnant at all. We have only told a few people and so I think in my psyche it feels like its not real until I tell everyone. We plan on "announcing" it after I find out what the sex of the baby is, which will probably be about 20 weeks. I will be half way then, maybe it won't seem so long then. The only good thing about this being the second time around is that I know my body does go back to what it was, eventually. Last time I had no guarantees. And even writing all this I feel guilty. Guilty I am not the mom who cherishes every moment of pregnancy and dances in the pregnancy fields of love and bliss. No, being pregnant is anything but wonderful for me. I understand the miraculous process it is and I will love my child, but I don't love pregnancy, sorry.
And this brings me to my greatest struggle, well at least one of them. Guilt, I am realizing how much I live out of guilt and how I respond or live my life is out of guilt. One example is that when my husband and I go out to eat, I will feel guilty about getting something a little more expensive so I will get what I want second best because of that and then I get a little mad that he gets whatever he wants at whatever cost. He never said I had to do that, but I feel guilty if I don't do that. It doesn't make much sense.
I have come to realize over the past weeks that I am dealing with some spiritual battles as well. Maybe its all spiritual, I of course, am not completely sure. I feel bombarded with self hatred and self doubt and sometimes it hurts my heart so very bad. I feel stuck, perhaps in a pit, if you will. Sometimes I feel like yelling to Christians that I am desperate for their help. Please help me, pray for me, intercede for me, love me, because I can do none of these things for myself. I know logically that no one avoids me in order to show me hate, but it is what I tell myself.
Growing up in the church and knowing God's word, the way the church works, loving His body, serving etc it makes the guilt oh so much greater. Like "you should really have more faith, you should really have more of a servants heart, you should really just trust the Lord more and you will be fixed" and you know what, I wish with all my heart that it was that easy.
And I have come to realize that I know what I need, I need a savior. What I genuinely want is someone to see me, and tell me that my life still matters and to rescue me from this mental torment that I find myself in. I have one, and He must be enough.
I felt like when I spent time in Northern Ireland then Lord spoke over me who I was and my calling clearly. During that time I was more myself than I have been since then, because I asked the Lord to define me and show me and He did. He showed me that my mission was the same as His in Is 61 to bind up the broken hearted, to bring those that sit in darkness into light, to speak freedom to captives. I believe in my heart of hearts that is still His call on my life. But you know, those verses and mission of his aren't to "those" people out there. I am that person, I need that freedom, I need that Savior.
In this journey, through different aspects, the Lord has told me to stop trying. Stop trying? Stop trying to be seen, so that someone else has to tell me my worth or see it or recognize it to validate me. Stop thinking I have to do something for God to accept me, to be worthy of love. That is not true. That even if I never do one more thing for Him, He could not love me any more than He already does. That His acceptance of me is not conditional, that I have made it so.
I believed God has a specific call on my life several years ago, and as I have walked through this hard valley, I have started to believe the lie that to believe God has something special for me is prideful to think. That I have something within me that God finds beautiful or special is wrong thinking. But why? Every child of a set of parents should be allowed to think that they are special to their parents and unashamedly so, because they are. This would never be seen as prideful. My journey in this time of receiving I believe is to believe I am special again. That its OK to think that again. That He wants to save me, He wants to set me free, He wants to love me and He wants to use me again. This hope is so necessary to my survival. Not only does He want to, He will.
And you know, I want to need Him, I want to know what it means to feel His great redemption. Not just know it logically or on paper that it is truth, but to feel it with all my heart, because it has happened to me. It is happening to me. That after this time, I won't love Him like I did before, because our love will be from a new and more deep place. A love that comes from walking through the dark together, through the hopelessness, through pain, through brokenness that I don't understand, but He does.
To enter into a place or time where I understand that there is nothing more and nothing better than Jesus. That nothing can save me, nothing can love me, nothing or no one can give me identity but Him. That He really is life to me, that is what I want to know. Apparently to learn these precious truths means walking through times when you feel as though you really do not have anything else but this, and HE must be enough and He is enough and He will be enough.
I still don't feel like I want to make this public. A place where people can validate me or my feelings. Not that this is bad, but I feel like I am in a time of waiting, receiving, and stillness.
This is something I feel like God has asked for me for a while.
I am on what feels like a very long and hard journey. I keep thinking I am nearing the end, but then it just keeps going, and its draining and tiring and long and all of those things.
I was laying in bed yesterday, as I do a lot these days, and I was staring out the window crying wishing I could feel like other normal people out there feel. Like they are thankful for their lives, that they can deal with life, that they find things that bring them hope for the future, just not the constant battle that I feel rages in my mind.
I am 14 weeks pregnant today, according to my doctors first due date given to me. Half the time I feel disgusting. Just tired, sore, heart burn, this weird phlegm thing I get because my lactose intolerance has grown exponentially in pregnancy and my lovely body acne has arrived yet again. The other half of the time I don't feel pregnant at all. We have only told a few people and so I think in my psyche it feels like its not real until I tell everyone. We plan on "announcing" it after I find out what the sex of the baby is, which will probably be about 20 weeks. I will be half way then, maybe it won't seem so long then. The only good thing about this being the second time around is that I know my body does go back to what it was, eventually. Last time I had no guarantees. And even writing all this I feel guilty. Guilty I am not the mom who cherishes every moment of pregnancy and dances in the pregnancy fields of love and bliss. No, being pregnant is anything but wonderful for me. I understand the miraculous process it is and I will love my child, but I don't love pregnancy, sorry.
And this brings me to my greatest struggle, well at least one of them. Guilt, I am realizing how much I live out of guilt and how I respond or live my life is out of guilt. One example is that when my husband and I go out to eat, I will feel guilty about getting something a little more expensive so I will get what I want second best because of that and then I get a little mad that he gets whatever he wants at whatever cost. He never said I had to do that, but I feel guilty if I don't do that. It doesn't make much sense.
I have come to realize over the past weeks that I am dealing with some spiritual battles as well. Maybe its all spiritual, I of course, am not completely sure. I feel bombarded with self hatred and self doubt and sometimes it hurts my heart so very bad. I feel stuck, perhaps in a pit, if you will. Sometimes I feel like yelling to Christians that I am desperate for their help. Please help me, pray for me, intercede for me, love me, because I can do none of these things for myself. I know logically that no one avoids me in order to show me hate, but it is what I tell myself.
Growing up in the church and knowing God's word, the way the church works, loving His body, serving etc it makes the guilt oh so much greater. Like "you should really have more faith, you should really have more of a servants heart, you should really just trust the Lord more and you will be fixed" and you know what, I wish with all my heart that it was that easy.
And I have come to realize that I know what I need, I need a savior. What I genuinely want is someone to see me, and tell me that my life still matters and to rescue me from this mental torment that I find myself in. I have one, and He must be enough.
I felt like when I spent time in Northern Ireland then Lord spoke over me who I was and my calling clearly. During that time I was more myself than I have been since then, because I asked the Lord to define me and show me and He did. He showed me that my mission was the same as His in Is 61 to bind up the broken hearted, to bring those that sit in darkness into light, to speak freedom to captives. I believe in my heart of hearts that is still His call on my life. But you know, those verses and mission of his aren't to "those" people out there. I am that person, I need that freedom, I need that Savior.
In this journey, through different aspects, the Lord has told me to stop trying. Stop trying? Stop trying to be seen, so that someone else has to tell me my worth or see it or recognize it to validate me. Stop thinking I have to do something for God to accept me, to be worthy of love. That is not true. That even if I never do one more thing for Him, He could not love me any more than He already does. That His acceptance of me is not conditional, that I have made it so.
I believed God has a specific call on my life several years ago, and as I have walked through this hard valley, I have started to believe the lie that to believe God has something special for me is prideful to think. That I have something within me that God finds beautiful or special is wrong thinking. But why? Every child of a set of parents should be allowed to think that they are special to their parents and unashamedly so, because they are. This would never be seen as prideful. My journey in this time of receiving I believe is to believe I am special again. That its OK to think that again. That He wants to save me, He wants to set me free, He wants to love me and He wants to use me again. This hope is so necessary to my survival. Not only does He want to, He will.
And you know, I want to need Him, I want to know what it means to feel His great redemption. Not just know it logically or on paper that it is truth, but to feel it with all my heart, because it has happened to me. It is happening to me. That after this time, I won't love Him like I did before, because our love will be from a new and more deep place. A love that comes from walking through the dark together, through the hopelessness, through pain, through brokenness that I don't understand, but He does.
To enter into a place or time where I understand that there is nothing more and nothing better than Jesus. That nothing can save me, nothing can love me, nothing or no one can give me identity but Him. That He really is life to me, that is what I want to know. Apparently to learn these precious truths means walking through times when you feel as though you really do not have anything else but this, and HE must be enough and He is enough and He will be enough.
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