Making resolutions a month or two late...

The month of January and beginning of February were very busy and stressful in a negative way. This new job at DU has been stressful since day one and the stress of not knowing what I'm suppose to do or how to do what I'm suppose to do has only increased the longer I'm there. And then I ended up behind in my online class and have struggled week by week to catchup, which has only added to my negative stress level and loss of sleep. Finally, my body said "no more" by coming down with "the crud"! Yuck!

This is going to become a turning point for me...NO MORE NEGATIVE STRESS for a while. I don't know what exactly I'll be able to do about the job situation, but I know that I'm done with "pretending" everything is okay when it's not. I am going to speak the truth and let the chips fall wherever they are meant to fall.

I desire to be healthy and a big part of being healthy requires that I be at peace with people, work that I need to do, and circumstances, not stressed all the time because I'm trying to fulfill something I'm not able to fulfill. I'm resolving to take better care of myself and to make the choices needed to become healthier and less stressed.

Great is Thy Faithfulness...Lam 3:23

The past few weeks have been extremely stressful for me. I've been in the process of moving and for me it truly is a process. I didn't even have anything packed, but I felt that it was time for me to move. I had been putting it off ever since spring. I dreaded the whole process and knew that once I moved, I would be faced with having to decide whether or not to let my brother live with me or to continue to drive even a further distance now to pick him up for the weekends. I refuse to leave him at my cousins all the time with no way to come up to Otsego to where his church and church friends are. They are my friends too, but particularly I want him to be able to socialize with them because they are so good for him. Without them, I expect he would withdraw from life and go back to a life of isolation and drinking, whereas with them, he interacts, socializes, gets "out of himself" and even enjoys life at times.

Eventually, the goal is to get him connected with community mental health to get help for his emotional and mental deficits and to help him become more independent. But, to do so, he has to move here and in with me until he can also get the financial help he would need to be on his own. For the past three years he has been living at my cousins in a room in their shop and he has been able to work with my cousin to help pay for his room and board. If he comes to live with me, he will end up with a fairly significant amount of time with nothing to do, which is not good for him. Trying to figure out how and what to do has caused me great distress in the past few weeks.

I have asked God, "What do I need to do"? But I haven't heard or seen an answer yet. Last night I had become so agitated and angry that I could hardly function. I felt desperate for an answer and didn't feel like one was forthcoming. I finally calmed down, but this is a "hot" topic for me. I feel great concern that I could destroy both of our lives and I have no desire to do that. On the other hand, I don't feel like I can sit here and do nothing. I start a new job in one week and I will be driving even further to work every day and there's no way I can make the trip to pick him up, another 100 miles roundtrip, after driving 40 miles home from work. So, I feel the need to make a decision and yet I don't feel capable of making the decision yet. I don't feel like I have all the facts.

So, where does this leave me? Pretty much the in the same place that I have been for several weeks now, ever since I started moving. So, where does the phrase "Great is Thy Faithfulness" come in? Even though I was experiencing significant distress last night and I don't feel like I have an answer yet today, I recognize that God is faithful! He will help me and my brother make it through this time of difficult and very possibly imperfect decisions no matter what I decide. And in that realization, I can have confidence and hope for the future. I'm not alone in this. Great is (His) faithfulness and it's a faithfulness I can trust!

The pain is still there...

Today, in my counseling session, I came to the realization that "the pain" from my experience in 2007 is still there. In 2007 I was grieving several significant losses and by the time 2008 came around, I started to lose hope in my future, started to shut down emotionally, and started to shut out God's voice. I was tired of losing and grieving and I just wanted it to stop. It felt like the hope I had been able to keep alive through 2007 was gone and my future looked painful and lonely. But, when you stop grieving before the grieving is done, you actually become stuck in the pain and that's where I'm at today.

Coming home I allowed the tears to flow as I told God how the pain was still there. How I know I didn't and don't deserve anything, but how I long for "the joy that comes in the morning." I don't really know how to finish grieving the losses; it feels like grieving won't change anything and I still feel like I'm tired of grieving. I want to move on and get past it and over it, but it's not going away that quickly.

I also find myself hesitant to start listening to God again. I think I'm afraid He'll tell me something I don't want to hear or He will ask me to do or not do and I'll rebel or be disobedient again, which would only add to my pain. So, I'm avoiding those kind of discussions with God. I do pray every day (several times throughout the day), but I'm not really talking and I'm not really listening yet.

Thank you Father for not giving up on me and for continuing to listen to me and take care of me. Please help me to let go of the pain and the fear I feel in communicating with You. Help me to open back up to You and allow You to help me let go of the pain that I may experience new hope.

A few thoughts from today's counseling session...

This evening after work, I had a counseling session with my counselor. I really like my counselor and feel comfortable sharing with her and feel that she has good advice. Right now I'm still feeling significant pressure from all of my feelings being bottled up for the past couple of years and this makes me feel like it will take forever for me to get anywhere with the counseling. But, having said this, I recognize that I have to start somewhere and given time, I'll eventually start to feel less pressure and more relaxed and steady in my emotions.

Tonight I talked about my struggle with romantic relationships and how they have never worked out. Some of it has been because I didn't want it to work out, but other times, it has seemed to not work out no matter how much I would have liked it to. I just would like to understand the dynamics and what, if anything, I'm doing wrong. Actually, I was just convicted of what I've done wrong in the few instances when I would have liked the relationship to work and it hasn't. But, now that I know what I've done wrong in those instances, disobeyed God, where does that leave me? Is there any hope with the three that I specifically disobeyed with? The first one of the three is married, so definitely there's no hope of being with him and I wouldn't want to hope for that. The second one I believe I was never to be involved with him romantically and now I no longer desire to be involved with him, too much baggage and too many unresolved issues all around. The third one isn't married, yet, but doesn't feel we are compatible, so it doesn't leave me with much hope of anything developing, although we are good friends. Will there be another? Will God give me another chance? I hope so, whether it's with the third one mentioned above or someone totally different.

To finish the counseling session, I asked my counselor what advice she could give to help me deal with the mounting pressures from daily things I need to do for work, home, school, church, my health, finances, and for my brother that I can't seem to get done. She said I should try to set micro-goals each day; identify what I absolutely must get done each day and try to do those things. There are a lot of things that need to get done in each area, but it's too much. I literally don't have the ability to get everything done and I do have to decide what is most important for each day. Currently, I'm behind in my schoolwork, I'm not getting enough sleep, I'm barely getting to work on time, I'm not getting any housework done, I'm not exercising at all, I'm eating late at night, and I'm not spending very much time with God, which only makes things worse. I do hope and pray that things will ease up a bit for me and that I'll be able to make some progress.

Lord, I ask today for wisdom to know and understand Your will for me each day and the strength to carry it out. I pray that You will show me what's important and what I can let go of. Please teach me Your ways that I may walk in them and Your charge that I may keep it (see Zachariah 3:7 below).

⁷Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in My ways and keep My charge, then also you shall rule My house and have charge of My courts, and I will give you access [to My presence] and places to walk among these who stand here. (Amplified Translation)

Something that makes me feel like crying...

Haven't posted much in quite a while. There has been so many things happening in the past months, painful things that make me not want to share my life with others, which means I don't blog.

For one, my brother Martin passed away May 19. Although we hadn't spent a lot of time together in the past 10-15 years since we lived 50-60 miles apart, I miss him. I miss being able to call him if I want to. But, I'm glad he's not suffering and he's safe asleep until Jesus comes.

Besides all of the above, one thing that continues to affect my life in so many ways is my Dad being gone. Even though he passed away 5+ years ago, I still miss him. I particularly miss him when I need help with something physical (he was strong) or mechanical (he was very mechanical). My brother JD is also very strong, although not mechanical, so when I need help with moving stuff around or something that requires someone physically strong, I can ask him to help and he usually is willing. The only time it becomes an issue is like what happened today. He doesn't live with me, he lives at my cousin's place and works for him for room and board. This coming Sunday I would like my brother's help with some lifting and moving things around. But, I struggled with asking for his help, because I felt like I had to ask my cousin if I could ask my brother to help me, since it would take him away from whatever my cousin wanted him to do. Having to ask my cousin if I could ask my brother to help this coming Sunday made me want to cry, particularly when my cousin started to quantify what would be "worthy" of him allowing my brother to help me instead of him. It leaves me feeling helpless, which makes me feel like crying. In fact, I felt pretty emotional and almost started to cry! I know that I'm not helpless; God is always there for me and I'm grateful. I guess in the future I'll just ask my brother and let him deal directly with my cousin rather than me asking my cousin first.

Precious and Honored...

Precious and honored...what does this mean? This phrase, which is also the name of my blog, comes from Isaiah 43:4. I had read the text before, but it had never spoke to me the way it did back in 2007. For the first time in a long time, I recognized how much God really did love me and that I was precious and honored in His eyes, even if I hadn't felt that way for a long time.

Tonight I read the verses again and let them speak to me as they did before. Life sure can leave a person feeling battered and bruised and unloved, but this verse and the verses before and after remind me that God will see me through and in His eyes I'm "precious and honored."

Thank You Father for loving me so much; for caring for me when others don't; for choosing me when no one else will. Thank You for not letting me "drown" in the river of life; for not letting me be "scorched" or "burn up" in the fiery trials; and for "ransoming" me with Your own life. Thank You.

Rejoicing in the Lord...

There are so many things to be thankful for and to rejoice over. Even the rough moments, the trials we endure throughout the days, weeks, months. Life isn't easy, at least not for me and not for most people. We all experience challenges and trials of some sort and how we learn to handle them is the key.

One of my favorite books, "Finding God's Path Through Your Trials," by Elizabeth George, really taught me God's way of walking through the trials this life brings. Not that I do it perfectly, but that I now have a vision, a picture of what it means to walk through them God's way.

The focus of the book is on James' admonition in James 1:2, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials." Count it all joy! Wow! How do we do this? Reading through the chapters, George discusses how to do this step-by-step, day-by-day. Easy? No! Definitely not! Worth it? Yes!

This week, while experiencing some significant frustration, enough to make me cry on the way home from work, I knew that even in the midst of the trial, I never, ever wanted to turn away from God again. Satan will do anything and try anything to turn us against God, against fellow believers, against the church, because He knows that if he can get us to turn away, than he has a much greater chance to keep us away permanently. Nothing on this earth is worth losing the eternal fellowship we will get to experience with Christ.

So today I say, "Rejoice in the Lord!"