I am in a really tough season in my life. Perhaps the toughest so far. I believe it started when I came back from the D. R. Congo in February, 2014. I had endured some pretty rough spiritual oppression and physical illness while I was there. I'm not the same person I was and a spiritual darkness kind of creeped in. I wasn't able to pin point it till now.
This I did not realize until a month or so after a break up in August 2015. I had not anticipated the pain and struggles a break up would bring. No one really talks about the struggle of breaking up...especially out of a serious relationship. I stayed faithful to be in God's Word everyday and to make sure I poured my heart out to Him. But I was still struggling. I tried to reach out to others...perhaps I didn't know how to communicate my struggles correctly. I did not get the support and encouragement I needed. I went to my counselor. It was kind of helpful...but everything I was being told I already knew.
Work was getting more and more of a struggle and add in a supportive godly guy that has never pursued me and the rebounding that began to surface from that as well. I was getting more and more exhausted and more and more depressed. I found myself alone too much. When I was alone I would either cry my eyes out or watch TV to numb and forget my emotions. I'd go to bed at 7:30-8pm every night. I'd still get up at 5:30 or 6:00 am and go before the Lord. Read His Word and refocus for the day. These moments are what have continued to see me through.
I was advised to go to the doctor--so I finally did. He put me on medical leave from work for 30 days, prescribed anti-depressants, and took some blood work. This circumstance gave me opportunity to be relieved from two of my hardest battles and I praise God for His provision and timing. Come to find out a huge part of my problem was a vitamin D deficiency. Very common, but still very much of an issue! I'm now off of the antidepressants and the energy level and healthy emotions are back up--praise God!
During my time off of work I slept, cried, took my vitamins, visited family, journaled, read the Bible, and continued to reach out to others for help. I even learned a great new technique for dealing with my crazy emotions.
I also had to come to grips with some realities.
1. I am alone. I do not have a husband or children. I have family and friends, but no one or no specific group that has committed to me nor I to them. I do not have a handful of people that will always be there for me. I don't have regular confirmation or encouragement, nor do I give regular confirmation or encouragement to others. Yes--God is my rock and yes I know I am not alone as my Creator and Savior is always with me. But I do not have a companion or a group of friends like the paralyzed man in the Bible whose friends carried him to Jesus. It is not good for man to be alone-- and I am. So where do I go from here knowing this?
2. I am selfish and prideful. I want to be used of the Lord...but what have my motivations been? To have others notice me and tell me what a great woman of God I am?! I have battled internal thoughts of silently suffering while watching others freely working through their joys and struggles. I try to share and am met with others whose problems are bigger and more immediate than mine. I then have a struggle of questioning why others get their needs met but I don't? Why am I the one that notices when others need help and help them, but no one sees me struggling and offers to help me? I look at how the Lord has gifted me and I feel like I am not being asked to participate or help with the gifts I have. Others are serving and instead of praising God for using my siblings in Christ, I ask "why is no one asking me to do this work. I would be great at it!" Where do I go from here?
3. I cannot stay at my job. The struggles of 6 years of trying to improve and work hard with no support or recognition has reached its limit. Work is a mess and a time bomb. If I don't get out from the mess that I continually have to solve and carry others, it will blow up in my face and no one will even care. So I gave a two week notice and I am now officially unemployed. Where do I go from here?
So where do I go from here? I had to first think logically and practically--no job, I need to pay my mortgage. I reached out and found a family that has agreed to rent my house from me for a year. My parents agreed to let me live temporarily with them until I can get another job or figure out the next step. This solved two specific needs--I'm not alone and financially I can pay my mortgage. Well, actually this solved all three. It is very humbling for a responsible and independent woman to quit her job and have to move back in with her parents. And with my parents comes two foster care teenage girls...so the selfishness will go away as I am forced daily to consider at least four others as more important than myself.
I've come to see that until I come humbly to the face of God and remember who I am without Him I am nothing. And yes I have all these gifts, but if I have not love (1 Cor. 13) I am nothing!
God does see my struggles and He does care. I have open access to cry out to the Lord at any moment in time--I need to use that access. I also need to be reminded of who God is. So I've begun to read the Psalms. A combination of relearning how to cry out and praise the Lord as well as be reminded of God's steadfast love that endures forever.
So for now, I take one day at a time. I humble myself in the sight of the Lord. I listen more and talk less. I have also started to think each evening of things I am grateful for or thankful for. I ask how I can help. I also have pushed back on those in my church and asked for help. God is providing. I don't know what is next, but I do know that I need to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness...and this passage comes with a promise: "and all these things will be added to you". So where do I go from here? I will close with this verse in its context:
Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV)
25 “Therefore I tell you, do
not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will
drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than
food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But
if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and
tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
