Total Whine-Why-Me Fest

I'm really fighting negativity this morning.   I really want to give into it and wallow in self-pity for a while.   Instead, I'm going ramble in a post that may or may not be deleted.

I sure don't understand why things are not as they should be.   The Bible says:

1) Draw close to Him and He'll draw close to me.
2) Seek and I will find, knock and it will be opened to me.
3) Ask and it will be given to me.

I really don't see those things happening.    Yes, I have much to be thankful for, and I am very grateful for all the mercy God has shown me, but I would like to see some prayers answered.

This weekend, my church hosted Dutch Sheets and his Reformation Tour.   It was mostly music and worship.   Teenagers, kids (and some adults) jumping up and down at the front, and it was a little chaotic.   I was there for most of the time, and I kept hearing people saying "how awesome" it was, but I found it hard to concentrate through all the activity.   Since I was seemingly the only one who couldn't get into to all that, I wondered if there is something wrong with me.   I mean...maybe I can't get to where I want to be with Christ because I can't get into jumping up and down and "dancing" during worship.  "Worship with abandon" if you will.  The music was good, the musicans were very talented, but I didn't know any of the songs (I think they were original pieces); so therefore, I couldn't sing along.    Is it me, or is it them?    I tried not to be just a spectator, and tried to get into worship, but it was a little hectic.

This morning, R walked past me and said, "Your butt is really pooching out there this morning."   It upset me.  Then he came up and started touching my butt like he was amazed at how big it was.    I got really upset and yelled at him.   And yelled.   He said he was trying to give me a compliment.   I said, "I don't know how "your butt is really pooching out there" is a compliment.   Several times, I shouted how much I hated myself, and things like that didn't help me any.   He's not normally a cruel person, and I don't think he was trying to be cruel, but I felt that he was.   I whined to God all the way to work through my tears wondering why I'm not seeing the three things above.   I am having a hard time not doubting my "freedom's coming" this morning.   I have these promises, right?    I have the promise of freedom.   I am supposed to be free.   I am not...I am still fighting the same battle, for years and years now, and I'm so...frustrated.  Upset.  Unhappy.  Angry, even.   Guilt laden because I'm feeling any and all of the above.  

I have asked God repeatedly...begged...for Him to change me from the inside out.   To renew my mind, transform my heart.   I've tried to draw close to Him.   I don't know what else I can do to get there, but I feel like the stalker girlfriend who's continally trying to gain the attention of her object of desire, but continually held at arms length. 

Is it because I can't get into marathon worship sessions?   I pray a lot...I pray alone.  I go to a private place and I pray.   I don't do a lot of loud praying and yelling in public.   I can get loud, but normally, I talk to God like I'd talk to any other person.   I sit at the altar alone and talk to Him, and pray for family and friends, and things going on in the world, and America, and folks that I read about in the paper or hear about in the news.  

I'm really, really confused.   I choose to believe that the Bible is true, every word of it.  Therefore, it can't be God, it must be me.   As I struggle to make sense of where I am today, and I struggle to make sense of what the Bible says, and where my life is, and how I can't get the two to line up...I just end up in a state of confusion.  

I'm trying to be still and know that He is God.   But I'm not doing a good job of it today.

R. called as soon as I got to work.   He wanted to make sure I was OK.   I guess he feels bad about how upset I was.   I'm just really, really needing some tangible results right now...

I'm feeling guilty for even feeling this way when I know there are people in this world who have problems much greater than mine.   But a hurt is a hurt, and I'm hurting. 

Epiphany

Something has bothered me for a while.   Job.   Yes, that book all about the man who endured so much, and came out of it with a deeper understanding of who he was and who God was.

I never could understand why God instigated satan against Job.   God, Himself, called Job blameless and upright, so why let this calamity befall him?

I've sought answers here and there, and while I agreed that "God is in control,"  and "we are the clay, He is the potter,"  I just couldn't make it all make sense to me.  I didn't fully grasp or appreciate exactly what that meant.

Today during lunch, I went to my car...I was intending to do a little sketching, but instead I picked up my Bible to read a chapter or two and thought I'd sketch afterwards.   I flipped my bible open, and there was Job 38 staring me in the face. 

4) “ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

5) Who determined its measurements?

Surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

6) To what were its foundations fastened?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

7) When the morning stars sang together,

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

And the questions go on and on and on in Job.

Far deeper than any question I had.

Among the questions I've had in the past is whether or not God is personally involved with us.   Did He just put things into motion and then take His hands off?   All of those questions are laid to rest.   God is in control.   If it happens to me, He allowed it.   I may not always like it, but He has a master plan, and I am part of it.  Even if it breaks my heart.  Even if it forever changes my life.  Even if it kills me.  He allowed it, and there is a reason.  

I think He recorded the story of Job so that I, years and years afterwards, could realize that He, ultimately, is in control and there is none like Him.

Everyone else may have had that figured out.   

It took me a while. 

Who indeed.

I feel a poem coming on.

Gnats and the Most High God

A few nights ago, I had a dream. I walked into my bathroom (a place of cleansing) and it was full of gnats, swarming everywhere. I clapped my hands together and killed several of them, then I got some spray and sprayed the room. Once the gnats were gone, I noticed a hornet (wasp) on one of the bathroom shelves.  I can understand gnats….pesky critters. I can understand my killing them. But why was there still a hornet in my bathroom to bother me? Actually, it wasn't bothering me, other than I knew it was there.

Yesterday, I went into my prayer closet, and I really called out to God. I spent some time reading Isaiah and Psalms, and then I heard in my spirit, “Write!” So I did what any normal human would do, I said, “God, is that You telling me to write? If it is, let me open my Bible up and see the word “write.” I opened my Bible up, and .... I didn’t see write. So I laid my pencil back down and mumble something to God about just wanting to be sure because I can’t always tell his voice from the “other voices” in my head, namely my own…and possibly the enemy. I then assured God I was only asking for confirmation. (I don’t doubt God can speak to me. I doubt my ability to hear Him.) I heard in my spirit, “You write, I will confirm what I say.” 

So I picked up my pencil and paper again, and wrote what I heard:

"You must learn to trust. Know Me. Love Me. Trust Me. I have chosen you, and I have loved you always. You have always belonged to Me, and My help has always been yours. You simply must reach and take what is rightfully yours because you are a child of the Most High God, your Redeemer, the King of Kings. 
Grasp who I am, and you will see who you are, and you are Mine. All that I have promised is yours, for My words do not fall void* to the ground, but they fall upon you and (my words) do as I say.  And I say you are free!”

I then did the ‘normal human thing’ again and said, “God if this is from you, please let me see “Most High God” in the Bible. I gave God three chances to let me see “Most High God” in random places in the Bible; that is, after the first time I didn't see "Most High God" I randomly opened the Bible twice more with the same results. I must say I came across some really encouraging scripture, but nothing that said “Most High God.” So I closed up my notebook, and went on about my day, and I didn’t think too much more about what I had written.

This morning at church, the preacher spoke about the sons of God, which he explained were the descendants of God. And if he said that we were sons and daughters of the Most High God once, he said it ten times, and he talked about Jesus being our redeemer. It was a great message. Somewhere after the first or second time I heard “Sons and Daughters of the Most High God,” I flipped my notebook back to the page where I had written the words above yesterday.

I wanted to cry.

When I got home, I decided to find “hornet” in the Bible, and came across this verse:

Deuteronomy 7:20 “Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.”

I did cry.

To someone else, gnats and a hornet may not mean a thing, just a silly dream. But to me, I know that God has heard my cries for freedom from this pesky obsession and has gotten rid of the gnats for me. And he sent me a hornet to make sure that there are no survivors. Who the Son has set free is free indeed. Truly. Free.

I’m walking on sunshine. I am free, He said so. I am. He paid the price so long ago, and all I have to do is trust that He is my Kinsman Redeemer. It’s a matter of my believing who I am, and I am a child of the Most High God, and He says I am free. Therefore, I am.

*Void: useless; ineffectual; vain

The Wasted Life

In late January, I applied for an additional position here where I work.  It would be in addition to what I am doing now.   I found out Friday that it appears I won't even get an interview for it.   I think I'm qualified...I know I'd be good at it, and I was very disappointed.   I tried to tell myself not to give into the negativity that was surrounding me like a black clould and clawing at me like a hungry tiger.   But by the time I got home I did give into it, and I whined to my husband about how insignificant I was, how I was just a joke, and had I been thin, I would have gotten an interview.  I know I don't know that for sure, but I was pretty upset about it, and my thought process is that no one talked to me because I'm overweight.

I've always had a problem with feeling insignifcant.  Unliked by the general masses.  Unhappy with myself.   More like hating myself for being the way I am.   I felt fat in high school, but looking back on my high school pictures, I realize I wasn't fat.  Oh, the life I have wasted.


I've been confused lately.   I know my God is not the author of confusion, so I am looking to Him to help me figure this out.   God promises His children freedom.   He promised me, personally, freedom.   But here I am...still on the binge rollercoaster, and I just don't get it.    I see so many people who are in my boat...some not so bad, some worse, but there are plenty of us...morbidly obese.

I've been pleading with God for freedom from this obsession for several years.  On my own, I have very limited (if any) success, and I really need Him to intervene in this area of my life.   I know that everything is in God's timing...but it's not like I just started asking.   I try not to be impatient and frustrated, but I can't help the feelings of sadness, confusion and low self esteem.

I really feel polluted.  I feel so far away from where I want to be spiritually.   I know my life wouldn't be perfect if I were thin, that's not even the point.   It's more the obsession than my size anyway...it's the way I feel about myself.   Some days I do better than other days, remembering that my size does not define me, but some days...it does define me...because I let it define me.   I'm really...in an emotional upheaval right now.   I really want to lay this burden down and put on His yoke, but how?     How, indeed.    I await His answer.

God is in control, and He is for me, not against me.