Hmmm

For years I have struggled with loneliness.  A deep ache that I constantly carried around inside me, an emptiness that I though another person could feel.  I can praise the Lord and say that I no longer feel THAT loneliness.  It is a different kind of lonely that I am experiencing now.

I have a hard time saying that I am lonely, but in reality I am.  Either that or just bored I cant figure out which.  But for the first time in my life I long for an imperfect man, who won’t complete me but I hope will compliment me.  I long for a companion that I can walk this journey with.  I think the hardest thing about being single is the hope of that relationship.  If only  God would take that desire away, I could fully enjoy this time in  my life.  Or would I really?  I always like to blame something for why I don’t step out in things I enjoy.  But the truth of the matter is I am scared.

I am scared of success, I am scared of God doing AMAZING things through me!  I long for these things yet I am scared of them.  Just as I long for a companion but I am scared of the pain that comes with an imperfect relationship.  At least where I am now I can pretend that someday my life will be amazing(there I am wallowing in that good again).  However, as I dream of the future, a new day dawns.  If I don’t crawl out of the pig sty soon and quite wallowing in good, the mud may dry and I will be stuck here forever!

Do I really want great

I really feel like I have been neglecting my blog lately.  Not sure neglecting is the right word, more like avoiding!  I am really struggling with not doing the things I love to do, instead settling for brain numbing activities like TV or solitaire! 

There are so many things I love to do, exercise, cook, take pictures, create random things from scraps around the house.  I have so many great ideas in my head.  And instead of spending time getting the ideas out of my head, I try to shut off my brain and ignore them.  In a book me and some friends are reading, the author mentions giving up the good for the great.  So why is it so hard to pursue the great!  Right now I am pretty sure I would settle for mediocre.  In some areas of my life I am kind of scared of what I would settle for!  So how do you keep your focus on great, when good is so comfortable?

This seems to be a constant struggle for me.  I have everything I need at my disposal to succeed with great, but I spend day after day wallowing in the good and the busyness of life.  So where is that fed-up-state where the good is no longer enough.  I think I am getting there and I am praying it is soon, because I am getting pretty bored with good!

My thorn

A friend of mine posted this question on Facebook today and it really hit the nail on the head of what I have been struggling with. 

“How does one conquer their fear and near resentment of success; as well as stop sabotaging themselves?”

Wow, how do you do that, when your whole life you have done this.  I truly do fear success, and not just in my career, or financially but in any form.  If I didn’t have to continually fight my own self-sabotage, I would be a size two by now!!  But seriously her question led to one of my own.

Is low self-esteem, i.e. self-sabotage a sin.  I am in fact degrading what the heavenly Father has created and brought into being.  I am saying that He is big enough to make me whole and I fall back into my old patterns of self-medication with food and purchases.

So if I acknowledge it is a sin, and I release it to the Father to heal why does it seem to always come back.  It is like the thorn in my flesh.  I had to apologize to someone today because on Monday they were complimenting me on my weight loss and I wasn’t very nice about it.  My excuse, I was having a bad day and I didn’t feel good.  So, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t accomplish loosing almost 30 lbs.  But I don’t feel like I accomplished anything.  It is quite sad really, I am watching the weight creep on lb by lb and I feel powerless to stop it!  But, I’m not, so why does that voice always end!

HELP ME!!!

Truly a Good Friday!

Several months ago as I was dealing with all the emotions from leaving the house and starting a new chapter in my life I had someone approach me about sharing my testimony with a group of teenagers.  These teenagers are home-schooled and for the most part come from very grounded families, so my first thought was what could they possibly learn from me.  Then on the heels of that thought was could I even handle the emotions of giving my testimony in the midst of leaving the house.  So I agreed to pray about it.  And as God always does he opened up a day on His timing that I was off of work and could go and share, that was today.

Usually I dread giving my testimony because there is so much of it that I almost get bogged down in the details. So many God moments amidst the pain that I hate to leave anything out.  Not to mention the pain and the agony is usually so fresh that i plummet into depression after reliving that part of my life.  But this time was different, this time I was truly looking back.  I was standing on the other side of the journey I have been through and able to say I AM A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST!  What an amazing feeling!

Then to share my story and see the same feelings I was sharing reciprocated in someone’s eyes.  To have a teenager break into tears because she has found someone who understands what she feels and then to be able to look her in the eyes and promise her with surety that Christ can and WILL carry her through this pain.  There is nothing like it, after that how could God possibly bless me more!  Well, He is God, so He did!! 

We had our good Friday service at church tonight and it was more of a time of reflection.  I one corner there was a video of pictures from the movie the Passion of Christ playing.  As I approached this area so did a young girl who is very dear to me, who had never seen the passion.  So I sat down with her and we held each other as we watched images of our beaten Lord flash on the screen before us.  I could feel her shake as the images drove home for the first time the reality of what He truly suffered.  My heart broke, I was so blessed to share this with her and all I wanted to do was cover her eyes.  I wanted to protect her from the horrors of what we as humans can do to other humans.  But I restrained and in doing so, I feel this young lady grew closer to Christ tonight and I was privileged to be present for that.  What an awesome God that not only would He move in my life but He would use me to move in others.  There is nothing like it.