Category Archives: A Little Honesty

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Strength

I needed it this week…

Those Pokemon aren’t going to catch themselves, after all, amiright???

Seriously, though, this was a sickly and difficult week. Monday wasn’t so bad but on Tuesday, I came home from work with a dreadful sore throat and a low-grade fever. I felt pure exhaustion so I lay in my mothers bed with a cool cloth on my head watching Star Trek:  The Next Generation with my little sister. I was in and out and after taking two short naps I went to bed and slept for almost nine hours. I awoke in the morning feeling sort of better. Less tired at least. Still a bit stuffy.

Work wasn’t exactly nightmarish. However, I found myself being faced with my own limitations and mistakes quite a few times, a pastime I do not enjoy all that much. But I had to remind myself again and again that being faced with my own fragility is much more of a blessing than a curse. 

…..But I was able to catch a Scyther as I was leaving work yesterday. But still no Pikachu. 

Blast.

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Beginning

I never liked New Year’s resolutions. But I’ve always loved setting personal goals.  I have plenty of goals for this year, personal, spiritual, what have you.

I want to focus on being nice more than being smart.

I want to take the time to write every day (or every other day). In some ways, I feel like it’s a waste of time but it helps with stuff.

I want to have the kind of relationship with God where I think of him as a friend than a big guy who is watching me all the time and is silently judging me.

I want to strike a healthy balance of discretion and openness. This one is incredibly important because I feel as though too many people spend too much time trying to spill the contents of their brains on other people just to make themselves heard that they don’t even think about how their words are affecting other people. OR they are thinking about how their words affect other people and they are trying to prove a point. I hear those words so often and they make me uncomfortable. “Proving a point” Can we all agree to rise above the immaturity of it and just love each other more?

Sorry, let me throw my soap box out of the room real quick, so that I’m not tempted to have a seat again. *throwing motion* *crashing sounds* *cat meows in distress*

Anyway, 2016 will be fine. Even if it’s not fine.

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Days

I’m finished with my first full week at my new job. Given the scope of my duties and how much stuff I will actually be doing, it will be quite a while before I’m fully settled in to it. The girl who previously held the job (and who will be moving into a new position at the end of the month) will be showing me the ropes, as it were, before fulling handing the reins over to me. For which I am eternally grateful. She really is the best and has been an effective teacher so far to a somewhat reluctant and apprehensive student.

Learning new things in a new environment is very difficult especially since I’m prone to nervousness and timidity. Add on to that my recent grappling with finding time and motivation to read my Bible consistently. It’s a horrible thing to admit and yet it’s the truth. In this new stage of life in which I find myself (i.e. 9-5, responsibilities, staying focused, being held accountable) I find myself in great need of an adjustment. As well as peace. Then again, I always find that more peace is a good thing.

Needless to say the next couple of months are going to be challenging. But I’m going to try not to think about them as months, rather as days. God gives us our whole life to live but He only gives it to us one day at a time. I wouldn’t be able to handle much else. And so, I will keep the following verse continually on my heart and mind: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34)

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An Emotional Season

Late spring/summertime is a very emotional time of the year for me. I think it’s because late spring last year I graduated from college and had to adjust to living at home permanently for the time being. I missed my friends, I struggled to find work, and I was frustrated and lonely. You could say that all of these things still apply to me but it was much much different back then. All these feelings were much more severe and much more front and center.

One thing that was good though about this time in my life was that it forced me to really turn towards and focus on the Lord. It was like there was literally nothing else I could do except pray and read my Bible. I didn’t want to. I feel very ashamed to admit it but I really did not want to read my Bible or pray at all. I had fully given up on myself and I was angry at God for what He was doing (or not doing) in my life. I was undergoing extreme depression and anxiety, which were masked on the surface by listlessness and outright anger.

This unrelenting tide of anger and resentment turned somewhat when I began speaking with my pastor on a regular basis. I admitted some things and he helped me begin to sort through my spiritual feelings. A great friendship grew out of that and we still talk regularly.

I’m hoping this summer is better. I hope that I can keep growing closer to God and rely on Him more and on other people in my life less. Not to say that relying on people is a bad thing but allowing them to dictate how I think and feel is far from healthy.

My prayer is that He’ll relieve my anxiety this summer and just help me to generally get over myself.

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An itching, restless feeling

Do you ever have that sensation where you’re itching and you feel uncomfortable in your own skin? Whenever I get this way, I have to seclude myself and do something mindless like scroll through my instagram or Twitter feed. A cup of tea usually helps too as does taking a few deep breaths to re-center myself. I have to pray also so that I can remind myself that I’m under God’s control and not my own. Also because prayer is just a good and necessary thing to do, especially when you’re in a state of distress.

Usually this will happen when I’m with a lot of people and my social anxiety will flare up. Sometimes I worry about becoming a hermit because I value my alone time so much. Not to mention that it depresses me that I should need so much time by myself. God created His people to be social and I’m not supposed to spend all my time by myself. Nor do I want to. I appreciate my friends and my family but sometimes I just need to be….alone.

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Don’t Think About It

I have found recently that I have gotten by pretty well by just not thinking about certain things. There are some problems in my life that, instead of thinking through like I used to, I prefer to just bury them in reading, going on long walks, playing video games, doing laundry, etc.

I used to always try to think through my problems, even when I didn’t have time to do so because I was in college and my primary responsibility at the time was to be a good student and to get good grades in my classes. However, nowadays, when I actually have time to think through some of the things that I would like to, I tend more towards just putting them off because if I give thought to the bad stuff, I will devolve into a bad cycle of just mulling things over and getting nowhere.

I try to give the bad stuff to God because I can’t possibly think about all of it. That is, when I actually remember to pray. Which is not often, I am ashamed to say. I’m currently working on improving my abysmal prayer habits…

And now I want to be a little honest. I feel as though this blog has just been me whining and sounding pretentious. I don’t have an adorable or happy or exciting life to really talk about and sometimes I feel self-conscious about that. I use this blog to think through some things, as I’ve said before, but I’m still not sure if I’m getting anywhere with that.

I’m not sure what my point is for writing that last bit. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest. Because….to be honest…..sometimes I really hate myself. I don’t want to. It’s a big problem that I need to get rid of. Just not sure how to at the moment.

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Do you think about God’s love?

Because I didn’t used to.

I was slightly taken aback a few months ago when my pastor asked me if I knew that I was loved by God. I don’t like to answer questions like that too hastily or without thinking them through first. My initial response would have been “Of course! I KNOW God loves me!”

But do I show that in my thinking and in the way I act? Do I truly act like someone who knows they are loved by God?

After some consideration, I realized that I have not been acting this out in my life, at least not to the best of my ability.

Recently, in my daily Bible reading, I have been trying to find particular passages of God’s Word that mention His love for his people, so that I might reflect on them. When I began this exercise, I found that it relieved anxiety. When I am fully aware of God’s love in my life, it makes certain things easier, certain big scary things less big and less scary.

It also leads to acceptance. I hate my sin but I know that I will never be rid of it. But what I DO know is that I have been forgiven and the ultimate price has been paid. Also, that I ought to strive to be more and more like my sinless heavenly Father (who loves me extravagantly) every day.

This knowledge does not relieve the world of its pain or anxiety or sorrow but it does make the whole thing easier to bear.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care on Him; for He careth for you.” 1 Peter 5: 6-7

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When you worry….

Lately, I have been a professional worrier. I have had a lot of time to invest in worrying. But if I’m being honest with myself, I would worry, even if I didn’t have any time for it. I would make time. That’s how severe this problem is.

Worrying doesn’t only do bad things to your soul, it can also hurt your body. It can also hurt your relationships and cause you to neglect the people you love. 

It is a constant battle that I fight and, at times, it leaves me exhausted. I’m thankful for my friends who have been listening. Because lately that is really all that I have been needing. Just an ear to collect all of these silly and worrisome tidbits that have been bouncing around in my head, plaguing me to no end.

I’m also thankful that God is here and everywhere and He knows how I feel. I’m thankful that He is using all of this to teach me something. 

I don’t want to worry forever. I have been working so hard to get rid of it and I believe I can happily say that, in the past four years, I have made considerable progress. It has been the progress of a spiritual turtle but I’m not about to turn my nose up at it. 

I’m just so thankful that God is here. And that my friends are here. And that I don’t have to do this all at once.

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Bringing Things to Him

Today I tried to pray.

I did my best, as I walked around outside, but when I brought some things to the Lord that have been weighing heavily on my mind for quite some time, I burst into tears. So I stopped.

Prayer has been difficult for me lately. 

Before I ended said prayer today I asked God to make it easier for me soon. Praying, that is. 

I know that God is bigger than anything that any of us worry about but today it did not seem that way. And I feel awful about that. 

I hope that tomorrow is better. 

Sorry about the gloom; I just felt like sharing a little honesty.