Ever felt like you wanted to help someone but you don’t know how? You’ve been in this place before and you just want to share with them and help them understand how it works, what the steps are towards change and health and where the light is at the end of the tunnel?
Did you get frustrated when they don’t seem to take your advice or really give any insights you gave them at least a little effort? All you can do is sit back and wonder why… Why do you want to suffer?
I have been there this week… A LOT!!! With both kids and their parents. I literally know how it feels to smack your forehead against a brick wall over and over again.
I realized that my heart hurts… for me and for these others. And I cannot give them what they will not give themselves. I am starting to know how God feels when He give us this free gift, but we turn it down.
I sit writing this late at night because I am too wound up and anxious to calm down enough to go to sleep…so I write… and I read scripture…you will get some soon 😊
So right now, in this equation, I am the problem. I let myself beat my head against that wall. I have not fully given all those emotions to God (hence the late night writing)
People come to me for help – right now I have not helped myself. Remember the quote “if a plane is going down, you have to put on your own air mask first, or you cannot help anyone else.” Without me figuring my needs out, I will be of no use to anyone else.
This sounds like I am expecting too much of myself. In my last devotional, I shared that I needed to do self-care and I thought I knew what that was. But in reality, God was doing SELF CARE with me by keeping me safe and arranging my whole morning, streamlined better than I could have ever planned it out myself.
So right now, why am I up and feeling not settled enough to get to bed?
I am working to give my anxiety to God – to stand on the promises that even if I fail…often…that is not how he looks at me. I am not a failure. I am a person who can thrive in extremely adverse conditions with the one who knows me better than I know myself. He wrote extensively on the topic of the lengths He will go to be there for me. To know me with a depth I don’t know myself.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
I have been searched up and the kids say. His hand is laid on me. He is acquainted with all my ways. My darkness is not too dark for Him. My soul reaches for and connects with Him even when I am not trying to. My days were formed for me, and I am made exactly as He designed me. There are no secrets from Him.
But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.