So after my horrendous stint with the flu last, last, last week, which during I had never more wanted the arms of my mother or father to rub my belly and tell me I was going to be ok, I came out of it with high definition clarity on two current agendas presently standing at the forefront of my thoughts. So, it was good, a good bad time. Ok, I wrote this entry a while back, and I don't remember what or where my thoughts on this were going...hehe. My Apologies. Sincerely.
Well, I woke up at 4:30am today, and made a breakfast burrito, that if made after noon would be no different than my lunch burrito, or dinner burrito after 5pm. I have it at least once a day, for one of my three square meals, not because of any reason aside from the fact that I enjoy it so much.
I had a weird week. Well, technically much of it can be accounted for for being a woman, but aside from hormonal imbalances, I was once again held.
When I began to experience freedom and joy, circumstances started getting terrible, and it took me for a ride. I tasted freedom from worry and anxiety, but I was like Peter when he began walking towards Jesus on the water. He looked down, I looked down, and he started to sink...I started to sink. In one week I had gotten a speeding ticket (for going 3 miles over the speed limit...practically), I ran over a pot hole in the road that completely tore apart my tire (I barely made it to the parking area), and while taking my kid to the bathroom just to pee the toilet over flowed and water flooded the bathroom (can you say panic and gross? yea.) haha. The first strike (the ticket) was not so bad, I was not shaken..much. My joy was in what lay beyond the measly inconveniences of a ticket. The second strike was also not too bad. Inconvenient, but not means for bankruptcy. A couple hundred dollars was not going to take away my newfound freedom and Joy. Then the third strike. It took me down, only because it was the day after the tire incident, and I even think that it was partially because I grew afraid that circumstances would keep getting worse the more I refused to let them drown my Joy, and I was already on stilts. I panicked a little. I have never had to deal with an overflowing toilet, so I guess I should have seen it as an experience to learn from, but at the moment it was just another bad circumstance, only this time it shook me. Broke me, and made me slip (almost literally). I cleaned up the mess (with two rolls of paper towels...who knew they were so absorbant!), and the ticket was taken care of with online traffic school, and I got a new tire at Sams Club. But despite all things being remedied, I had taken a beating. My ego was hurt, my head was a mixture of angry, disappointed, and ashamed. I was a rock climber who had slipped and lost her footing, only to be taken back a few feet, but mentally it was draining.
The following weeks were difficult as I let Apathy take over as it so easily does. I had very little will to fight it, and I just let it engulf me. Throughout the days following I had moments of wanting to try again, to find my Joy again, to remember freedom and how amazing it felt to not be affected by circumstances, but it was hard. I think it was mostly due to the fact that I didn't tell anyone about this. I had no accountability, no one with which I chose to share my burden with, and I was too prideful to lean on those who I know would have so lovingly held me during this time.
Then, as God usually does, I was nudged. Yesterday, it occurred to me that Joy was waiting for me, that I just needed to forget about wanting to appear a certain way, and flat out ask for help. For prayer. For love. And lo and behold, I got it the moment the words flew out of my quivering mouth.
...sigh...
It keeps happening, but people are made for people, and I am not a solo survivor. I need people, but I hate being or feeling needy so it's a constant battle against my illusory ideal of who I think I want to be. Sometimes it even feels right to want to be strong, independent, a leader, someone people come to for advice, a fighter. But I'm so weak. I'm so dependent. I need guidance. I need advice. I need comrades for every battle.
But most of all, I need to strive to place who I am in Jesus. Who I am is because of what Jesus did for me. Through Jesus I am perfect. I am not what I do or fail to do for Christ, but I am who I am because of Christ. I am reading a book called "Who do you think you are?" by Mark Driscoll and in it he reiterates the ever tolling and tumultuous circumstances the apostle Paul went through:
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27-
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25 Three times was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Then he goes on to say in the next two verses:
28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
Paul was more concerned about the churches he wrote to, rather than his circumstances (which were pretty crazy, shipwrecked, beaten to near death several times, naked?!, hungry!??! COLD?!...all of which I become immobile when such things happen to me). His joy was in feeding and helping others, and through that his joy was always in Christ Jesus, who is forever, therefore Paul's joy was forever. Those things, being beaten, being betrayed by friends, starvation, nakedness, did not and simply could not shake from Paul the Joy he had in Christ Jesus. They became a means to reaching more people to Christ, loving more, living more, and in the end dying with the Joy of getting to be forever with Jesus. It wasn't that he wasn't weak, or that he didn't burn inwardly with the desire to sin, but that his identity was not his weaknesses or in sin, but in Christ. My ticket, tire and toilet incident are so trivial compared to what Paul encountered, but the point is that our circumstances, atmosphere, situations, should not shift our Joy one bit. Not saying I will not feel sad or hurt or in pain, but when I do, I will turn to Jesus and trust in Him to bring me through such times, as He bore the ultimate sadness, hurt and pain on the cross for me.
I thank God for His mercies, they fall fresh on me like snowflakes melting across my cheeks. It is overwhelming how loved I am by God, shown through my friends, the outcomes of my terrible circumstances, and the peace that follows. Overwhelming. Overwhelming. Only tears. Breathing.
-JmeGrey
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