Depending on God

5-11-2010

Gratitude/Happy List continued

145. I get to spend extra time with V today
146. We are going to a retirement party for my mom today.
147. My mom is retiring. She deserves s to!
148. My friend Sara is going to help me plant some flowers and bushes.
149. We are going to Ohio for a long weekend.
150. Lots of family time this weekend.
151. I love my new comforter.
152. I am almost done with all the laundry!
153. We had yummy steaks for dinner on Mothers Day.
154. We get to have a birthday party for V very soon.

I have been feeling much better the last two days. It has taken a lot of work and determination to feel better. God has been showing me that He wants me to completely depend on Him for everything. I get extremely overwhelmed often and whenever that happens God wants me to go to Him and ask for help. I felt very groggy this morning and I was in a lot of pain (headache, neck and shoulders) so I had a really hard time getting going. I really hate it when I waste time like that. So I asked God to help me prioritize the activities that needed to get done. I asked Him to direct my steps. I gave Him control of the tiny details of my life and trusted that He would put me on the right path. This has really helped. Interestingly, playing around on facebook was not among the most important activities to get done. God is so very faithful and He wants us to dwell in his presence all day long.

5-12-2010

I really wanted to journal more yesterday but it just did not happen. I have been struggling with being exhausted lately. Not just plain old tired but exhausted. I need to start listening to my body because my fibromyalgia pain has been a lot worse and I think that is because I am so worn out. The problem is that my body needs/wants a lot of sleep. I let myself sleep in yesterday but I skipped a nap. I slept in again today but I also had to take a nap. I tried to sleep for only forty-five minutes but I was so exhausted that I slept through my alarm. I slept extremely hard for two and a half hours. Needing this much sleep really frustrates me. There is so much to get done in a day and I just can’t get it all done needing to sleep as much as I do. I shot up out of bed after my nap today and immediately felt overwhelmed and anxious. I knew that there was no way I could get everything done in the forty-five minutes I had before my family got home. I was so anxious that when I did my relaxation exercises I could not get myself to chill out! Uggggggggggg.

God has been blessing me in my quiet time with Him. Almost everything I read in Scripture or in my devotional books has been speaking directly to my heart and my current circumstances. At times when I have been hurting and feeling hopeless I have wondered why in the world I am suffering in such extreme ways (at least that is how depression feels, it feels like there is nothing worse than the pain I am feeling). I know that God is good and that He has a plan for me but it is so hard to understand why such miserable depression is a part of the plan. Two days ago God gave me this Scripture;

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our suffering, so also you share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-7

I would not have wanted to receive this word from God on Saturday or Sunday. When we are in the midst of the worst part of our suffering we really don’t want to hear that God is teaching us how to be empathetic. Or that He is preparing us for a time when we will comfort and bless someone else who is hurting. We also don’t want to hear that our suffering is part of God’s plan. I try to be careful to let people feel what they are feeling and just listen. Then when they are a bit stronger I can encourage them with God’s Word about His purpose for the suffering. When you are in the middle of the most excruciating pain you have ever felt you just don’t want someone to try to explain it away.

However, when God shared this with me on Monday I was already determined to feel better. I was determined to have God heal me, strengthen me, and fill me with His joy. So Monday this was very encouraging.

I am reading a daily devotional entitled Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. She basis each entry on Scripture and writes as if Jesus is speaking directly to us. My goodness was this message for me! For May 10 she wrote;

“DO NOT RESIST OR RUN from the difficulties in your life. These problems are not random mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me. When you start to feel stressed, let those feeling alert you to your need for Me. Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us. Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life, since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance.”

WOW! It is not easy to think of my depression as a hand-tailored blessing designed for my benefit and growth. If I had read that Saturday morning I may have thrown the book across the room. But God knows what we can handle and when we can handle it. I was hurting too much this weekend to see past the pain. I like how Sarah says that when we are feeling stressed it is a sign that we need God. I have been trying to pray and reach out to God the past few days as soon as I start to feel stressed. When I actually do it (instead of dwelling on the cause of my stress) I feel much better. God has been helping me see through the stressful situation and calm down. I see more clearly when I am not “stressing”. The big catch is that I have to make the choice to reach out to God. I have to stop dwelling and surrender to Him. I have to choose Him and that is a very intentional act. God is teaching me about true dependence on Him. I am not very good at it yet. I like to try to control situations but God is showing me my true NEED for Him.

Then on May 11 Sarah wrote;

“THANK ME FOR YOUR PROBLEMS. As soon as your mind gets snagged on difficulty, bring it to Me with thanksgiving. Then ask me to show you My way to handle the situation. The very act of thanking Me releases your mind from its negative focus. As you turn your attention to Me the, the problem fades in significance and loses its power to trip you up. Together we can deal with the situation, either facing it head-on or putting it aside for later consideration. Most of the situations that entangle your mind are not today’s concerns; you have borrowed them from tomorrow. In this case, I lift the problem out of today and deposit it in the future, where it is veiled from your eyes. In its place I give you My Peace, which flows freely from My Presence.”

What?! Thank Him for depression? You have got to be kidding me. Seriously this sounded crazy!!! But then I thought about it for a minute. Maybe God knows what He is talking about. So I forced myself to mumble “Thank you Lord for this difficult time.” I could not say thank you for depression. It felt like blasphemy thanking anyone for depression. But I made myself sincerely thank God for my problems. God has definitely helped me deal with my depression the past three days. I have felt His presence as I have put my life into His hands. Actually I usually just put my day into God’s hands. My life seems way to huge right now. I am taking things one day at a time. So I have given Him my day the past three days and I have had really good days. They have not been easy days! But they have been manageable and good.

Being thankful really takes my mind off whatever I am struggling with. My problems or pain don’t disappear but I am no longer focusing on them. My counselor is the one who suggested I start a gratitude journal. He said to do it every day. He gave me a bunch of handouts on research done on gratitude. One of the articles was by Oprah. She talked about how intentionally being grateful each day completely transformed her life. It is interesting how science and Gods Word are in agreement. Being thankful releases you from the negative focus and makes life better.

God is so very good. He loves each one of us with a love than none of us can fathom. Faith is hard to understand. God is hard to understand. However I know that He is real. I have seen Him work in my life as well as so many other lives. The joy of the Lord truly is my strength.