"I cried out, 'I am slipping!' but your unfailing love, O LORD, supported me. When doubts filled my mind your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer." Psalm 94: 18-19
This past year my body has been racked with anxiety. It's not a feeling you can really put into words. It's such an out of body experience. You tell your body to stop aching and worrying and spinning out of control, but there is nothing you can do about it in the moment. Your heart just races and your mind knows nothing else. Somehow, you have to ground yourself.
One night while laying in bed with my husband, trying to fall to sleep as fast as possible, because I have to wake up so early to go to work, my anxious thoughts started creeping in my head. I tried to push them out. "Breathe,' I told myself. Keep breathing. Take deeper breaths." It wasn't working. One tear after another started slipping down each cheek. I held my deep sobs that would soon be following. I didn't want my husband to know what was happening. My body stiffened. He reached out and touched me, because he could feel my body start to throb. Then the tear gates fell wide open, my body spun out of control, and my heart felt like it was going to rip my chest wide open rib by rib. I had never felt this much moisture sliding down my cheeks. I had never known what it felt like for the thing that gives you life feel like it was actually about to be taken away.
I'm not sure how I calmed down and came back to reality exactly on that night. My husband probably started trying to speak Truth to me, because somehow I heard His voice saying, "This is not the life I planned for you, but I am here for You! Turn back. Meditate on my Truths I have told you all of your life. I am your Hope. I am your Stability. I am you Shelter. I bare your burdens. don't believe the lies and let them seep into the very life of you."
Oh how I believed those lies. My anxious thoughts were consuming me, which just made it worse, but I never turned to the LORD. I knew I was supposed to, but how could He comfort me? Words in a Book didn't help. People telling me that God had a plan for me because of my fears and failures didn't help. And that quote, "if God brings you to it, God will get you through it" definitely didn't help. I felt alone and misplaced. I felt dirty and ashamed, because "I'm an adult." I shouldn't be having problems like this. But I was having problems.
I still am facing the same problems that gave me my anxiety attacks. Now, I'm actually resting in God's Word on a daily basis, though. I'm putting forth effort to get to know my Saviour even more so now than ever before. He has helped me numerous times when I begin to slip. And just when I think I don't need His help or He can't do anything is when I realize just how badly I need Him. So many times last year I thought I was crying out for His help and His hope that He promises us, but I was really just asking for an out. I was pretending I had done my duty of a Christian, by "praying" but going back to the filth just after.
I urge you to earnestly and humbly seek out Christ in your mess. Not just read a Bible verse for the day and say, "Okay, this should help. Why is it not working? He can't help!" Because that is just filling your head with one more lie than it needs. He promises to help his children.
If you read just four verses up it reads, "The LORD will not reject his people; he will not abandon his special possession." Psalm 94:14
This is one of my favorite verses. He WON'T abandon you. He will not give up on trying to protect you from the enemy. You are His special possession. That's not to be taken lightly, so please don't take Him lightly. He loves you and me and doesn't want the world to eat us alive.
Showing posts with label career. Show all posts
Showing posts with label career. Show all posts
Monday, January 6, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Number One
Number one, which I am not.
Just when you think you've learned all you can about how to live your life in the best way possible you get side swept with something you thought you'd never have to face.
Growing up, I always "knew" I'd be successful (aka making the big bucks), traveling the world, walking amongst the elite, marrying the most handsome man in the world, and have four little ones who adore me. Well, three years after graduating from university I still don't know what "career" I want. I haven't traveled outside the country since graduating, I definitely do not make the big bucks, I've never met anyone famous, and I don't have four set of feet running around me telling me how great of a person I am. I did, however marry the most handsome man in the world!
The years following graduation are tough. I'm not saying they haven't been filled with fun adventures, but after supposedly "finding yourself" in college, you lose it after you graduate. You move separate ways from your closest friends and maybe see them once a year. And you start searching for yourself again. I was very blessed to find my husband after I graduated. We've had a great (almost) two years of marriage, but as I watch him grow in his career as a Project Manager and LOVE it, I can't help to wonder where I went wrong. What should I have done differently? What is wrong with me? I keep feeding myself lies and binge on what the enemy is telling me.
On top of changing my career path, over the past year and a half, we have faced infertility. The four sets of feet I that should be pitter pattering around the house (at least one set) is no where in sight. You always hear about a man having his "man card" taken away when he does something womanly. Well, if I had a woman card, I feel like not being able to conceive in my early twenties would have had it revoked.
Something that I thought would come so naturally like it has to so many other women for years has not at all come naturally to me. So, I begin to wonder, "Lord, why me? Why did you choose this path for me? Why have I shed so many tears and had so many sleepless nights thinking that I am imperfect, that I am broken, that I am not worthy?" I know how Sarah felt by not being able to conceive. By not being able to do something that the female body was created to do, you feel useless, ashamed, anxious and depressed.
I have been binging on these lies for many months now, not looking for the truths that my Father gives me in His Book, because I didn't think I was worthy. Because the lies are easier to hear than beautiful words. But He tells me that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)." I have been sinning by not accepting that truth. I have been sinning by being anxious to the point of having anxiety attacks and not truly bringing my fears to Him and handing them over "by prayer and petition (Phil 4:6)." Instead, I have been anxious about everything! I have indadvertedly made myself number one instead of My Saviour.
I am not number one. Jesus has proven this over and over to me throughout different challenges thrown at me during my life. Why I didn't cling to that during this challenge baffles me, because He is the greatest aspect of my life. He is Number One. Don't listen to the enemy in your struggles. I know it may be easier to hear, but it is far from the truth. Your Number One will provide for you. He will take care of you. He will make a way out for you. Don't cave in! This will be a daily struggle (as it is for me during this battle), but don't make yourself number one. He is your Number One. Listen to Him.
Just when you think you've learned all you can about how to live your life in the best way possible you get side swept with something you thought you'd never have to face.
Growing up, I always "knew" I'd be successful (aka making the big bucks), traveling the world, walking amongst the elite, marrying the most handsome man in the world, and have four little ones who adore me. Well, three years after graduating from university I still don't know what "career" I want. I haven't traveled outside the country since graduating, I definitely do not make the big bucks, I've never met anyone famous, and I don't have four set of feet running around me telling me how great of a person I am. I did, however marry the most handsome man in the world!
The years following graduation are tough. I'm not saying they haven't been filled with fun adventures, but after supposedly "finding yourself" in college, you lose it after you graduate. You move separate ways from your closest friends and maybe see them once a year. And you start searching for yourself again. I was very blessed to find my husband after I graduated. We've had a great (almost) two years of marriage, but as I watch him grow in his career as a Project Manager and LOVE it, I can't help to wonder where I went wrong. What should I have done differently? What is wrong with me? I keep feeding myself lies and binge on what the enemy is telling me.
On top of changing my career path, over the past year and a half, we have faced infertility. The four sets of feet I that should be pitter pattering around the house (at least one set) is no where in sight. You always hear about a man having his "man card" taken away when he does something womanly. Well, if I had a woman card, I feel like not being able to conceive in my early twenties would have had it revoked.
Something that I thought would come so naturally like it has to so many other women for years has not at all come naturally to me. So, I begin to wonder, "Lord, why me? Why did you choose this path for me? Why have I shed so many tears and had so many sleepless nights thinking that I am imperfect, that I am broken, that I am not worthy?" I know how Sarah felt by not being able to conceive. By not being able to do something that the female body was created to do, you feel useless, ashamed, anxious and depressed.
I have been binging on these lies for many months now, not looking for the truths that my Father gives me in His Book, because I didn't think I was worthy. Because the lies are easier to hear than beautiful words. But He tells me that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)." I have been sinning by not accepting that truth. I have been sinning by being anxious to the point of having anxiety attacks and not truly bringing my fears to Him and handing them over "by prayer and petition (Phil 4:6)." Instead, I have been anxious about everything! I have indadvertedly made myself number one instead of My Saviour.
I am not number one. Jesus has proven this over and over to me throughout different challenges thrown at me during my life. Why I didn't cling to that during this challenge baffles me, because He is the greatest aspect of my life. He is Number One. Don't listen to the enemy in your struggles. I know it may be easier to hear, but it is far from the truth. Your Number One will provide for you. He will take care of you. He will make a way out for you. Don't cave in! This will be a daily struggle (as it is for me during this battle), but don't make yourself number one. He is your Number One. Listen to Him.
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