The past 5 weeks has been an emotional roller coaster for me and blogging has been challenging.
My family struggled with colds and flu bugs for about 3 weeks. On top of struggling at home, I was struggling at work and it overwhelmed me. I got depressed. All my good intentions and motives to accomplish those lovely goals of mine went down the toilet. As I got frustrated and the stress mounted, I stopped caring about eating right. I stopped caring about cleaning my house. I stopped being intentional about spending time with God or my family.
I gained back some weight which only proved to discourage me further. My house became a live-in pigsty and I withdrew emotionally from everyone. Every goal I had set faded into the background.
What finally broke through that fog of stress and depression was a Sunday afternoon when once again I was struggling with work at home. I got angry and I went to my journal and I vented to God. I unleashed all that pent up frustration, all the discouragement and how my selfish heart thought He had stopped working in my life. Amazingly, despite my terrible attitude, He provided a solution to my immediate problem within a few short minutes after my venting.
It was humbling. Here I was accusing Him and complaining, when He had never left me. He had never forsaken me. I could only apologize and it taught me a valuable lesson. In my prayers, for the past many years without realizing it, I have pretended, I put up a wall of false humility pretending with all the ways I had learned were the "proper, Christian" methods of speaking to the Lord. I wasn't being real or honest with myself or with God.
It's been 2 weeks since that Sunday afternoon and I am getting back to my positive outlook. I perceive God to be actively involved in my life and I strive to make sure that false humility doesn't sneak back up on me. It prevented me from having a true intimate relationship with God. He wants to know you. He wants to know me. He wants the raw you. No false pretenses. No pretending you have it all together. No assumptions about what you have to do to reach Him, to earn His blessing. He gives freely and we must learn to give ourselves freely in return.
