Doing What God Asks You To Do

For several months now I've been struggling to write the book God placed inside of me to write.  It's all jammed up.  I am a mess because of it.  It's quite possible I heard a word from God today concerning what's going on.

I was looking at some books at a thrift store.  Many months back I'd passed up a Beth Moore book which I regretted.  Beth Moore, for those of you who don't know her, is a world known author and teacher of God's Word.  She teaches Living Proof Ministry conferences in the U.S. and in her home church in Houston, Texas where she and her husband live.  She is the mother of two grown daughters, one son-in-law and she's a grandmother.  To give you an idea of her personality and style of teaching, please watch this.  It's one of my favorite stories she tells:



The reason I shared this is because I found another one of her books today.  Since it's only the second time I've found one in at least 6-12 months, I wondered if it was what I was supposed to read to get me out of this sludge.  I started to have this conversation with myself:

 - What Beth writes comes so easily to her.  Maybe I'm not supposed to write.
 - Clearly she had God behind her.  I guess I do but I really don't think so.
 - If Beth were writing the book a lot of women would get help because she wrote it.
 - A lot of people respect Beth so maybe she should write it.
Then I heard, who I discerned, to be the Holy Spirit say:
 - Amy, put away her book.
 - I don't want Beth to write it.  I want you to write it.
 - I don't want Beth's story told.  I want your story told.
 - Look at the books again.
I found John Ortberg's book, "The me I want to be - becoming God's best version of you."
John was one of our most beloved ever teaching pastors at Willow for nine years.
That's the book I purchased.

I don't feel confident in much of anything.
I feel like a failure.
I want to disappear.
I'm not going to do anything.
That's reality for today.

Giving It All To God

When the clocks in life tick heavy on my spirit,
When the to do lists of life weigh heavy on my mind,
When the speed of living goes faster and faster,
These are the times I need God to reign in me.

Feeling Deserving

I struggle with feeling deserving.  Feeling deserving of being thin and the happiness it would bring.  Feeling deserving of the new laptop a friend just bought for me so I can write my book using the latest software and operating system including a touch screen.  Feeling deserving of having a handful of friends who truly care about me and can handle the challenges of my mental illness.  Feeling deserving of a God who is always watching over me.

I'm in touch with what emotions "feeling deserving" is bringing up:  fear it will be taken away, fear I will sabotage it, depression that it's all happening at once, depression that I am so tired from the stress of it all and tender because I don't want to screw it up.

As a Christian, I'm not sure I'm supposed to feel deserving of anything.  I think about everything passing through God's hands.  Since it does I see it being given by Him.  That's what makes it deserving.  That's what makes it good.

I'm very stressed out.  I want to lock myself in a room where I can't be found.  I have a lot to learn with Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 and OneDrive.  It feels overwhelming because my brain isn't as tech savvy as it used to be.  Still, this is a gift from God so I must trust His judgment.

I can't wait to talk to Faith on Tuesday.
This in one of those rare times when I wish I could see her twice in one week.

I'll be chewing more gum to try and calm myself down and maybe go for a walk.

Lord, please hold me up when I feel like falling down.  Let my weary soul find rest in you as I move forward in this season of life which you have prepared and set before me.  Please help me to seek the help I need be it from friends, a better diet or exercise.  I want to be successful writing our book.  I want to hear you say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
Love your daughter,
Amy Kathleen

Letting Go of the Bad Stuff

Even when the day seems long, I'm having difficulty staying awake, my household chores are getting done a little more slowly and I'm living life inside my head, even when all of this is happening it's still a better day than how it used to be.

Not that long ago my soul was weary from relational conflict.  I needed to let go so I did.  It didn't make the process of letting go any easier or the sadness of letting go any less painful but in the end it was the wisest decision to make.  

On the heals of that came the process of saying good-bye to self injury behavior.  It started with hair pulling when I was a little girl.  It stayed that way all through my thirty's.  When I started self-injuring using sharp objects it felt good because I could point to what hurt.  In my mid to late forty's is when I was able to stop all self injury behavior.  There are times I wish I could still use it but those are fleeting thoughts - not ones that last.

I have enough scars - inside my soul and outside on my body.  I have many of them in my memory and others on my arms, shoulders and other places.  Some of them were inflicted by my Dad or other adults and some were inflicted by me.  All of the scars tell a story about a time in my life that was painful - a time I'd just as well forget.

I'm so glad to have my God, family, friends and therapist.  My scars cannot be seen by them.  Thankfully, I'm the only one who knows where they are.

They help me keep a straight line on the narrow path.  Not on a perfect path and certainly not on a path that is dangerous to my recovery.  I guess you could say it's a well-balanced path that rewards good choices and gives good correction for bad choices.

Self-injury is not a game nor is it an attention getter. It's an embarrassment in front of others.  It's not funny when I'm doing it, either.

Pay attention if you know someone who is self-injuring.

Their cry for help is bleeding on their body.

Mentoring Nephew

Today was a very busy day.  Therapy session, lunch with my nephew, brief down time so I could go see a dear friend's volleyball match, a tender visit with her afterward then home to try and rest.  I was feeling concerned for my nephew because of a choice he'd made that directly effects his asthma and his health.  I voiced my concern and expressed my hope that he would discontinue that behavior before it became an addiction.  He seemed to be listening but I'm not sure.

He's always respected what I've had to say.  In general, he's taken my advice and followed it knowing I would never lead him astray.  We talked about his finances, too.  I offered once again to teach him the benefits of using a budget and this time I think he was beginning to understand the importance of having one.

We talked about college:  Talking to a counselor, applying for financial aid, what to do about his job, flexibility to work and go to school, how do you payback loans and when - all the questions he has running around in his head.  I told him there are step by step processes you go through and your college counselor  helps you through most of it. You don't have to figure it out alone.

We talked some more about his truck.  It's a total gift from their neighbor.  He loves it!

Then I brought up the "God" topic on the way back to his house.  I had to be careful because his walk with God has taken a nose dive in the last few years.  He was a little resistant (which I expected) so I approached him very open handed with no set agenda.  I let him know I'd like to do a little Bible study with him, just 15-20 minutes each time we get together.  Nothing deep, more about some of the people in the Bible I think he can relate to.  He wasn't sure and expressed where he was with God but yeah, he was okay with it.  I told him I'd work on a couple of people and show them to him.  Then he can pick out who he'd like learn about.

While he wasn't gun ho about the idea, I was grateful he wasn't completely tuned out.  As his Godmother and as one of the closest Christians in his life who lives out her faith, I know he's watching to see how I handle situations that are complicated or frustrating.

One of the people I thought of in the Bible is Sampson.  Not sure who else but for now, it's a beginning.

Has God put a college student in your life to mentor?  If so, don't take it lightly.  These young men and women are very impressionable and many of them are called to change the world.

Genesis - Numbers 27

A few months back I started reading the Bible beginning with Genesis.  I'm not reading it chronologically.  I'm reading it in book order - all 66 of them.  I've done this several times since becoming a Christian and I always learn something new.

Genesis:  I read about the creation of the world, the galaxy, the stars, the sun and moon, the land and the sea, all of the animals and Adam and Eve. Then there's the story of Noah, his family, the building of the ark, the animals being brought to the ark by God in numbers of two (one male, one female), he brought them.  He flooded the entire earth and wiped out all of humanity because no one worshiped Him except for Noah and his family.  I felt sad for God when I read this.  Then there's Abraham and Sarah,  Jacob and Esau and  Joseph with his spectacular coat and dreams and his brothers plot to get rid of him.

Exodus:  I read about the Exodus of God's chosen people (the Israelites) out of Egypt, the ten plagues cast onto Pharaoh's people (the Egyptians) for refusing to let Moses take God's people out to pray with everything they owned, the tenth plague changing Pharaoh's mind and setting them free, God parting the Red Sea for His children to escape the chariots of Pharaoh, the Ten Commandments written on stone tablets by God when he and Moses were on top of Mt Sinai for 40 days and God was in the cloud, the golden calf formed by Moses' brother Aaron, the building of the tabernacle, the specifications of the Priestly garments, the Sabbath Law and the Alter of Burnt Offering.

Leviticus:  This is the book of God's laws from offerings to stonings to rules for priests to feasts.  It contains the offerings that are brought into the Ark of the Tabernacle as substitutionary atonements for the sin the people committed.  This is the only way the sin could be paid in full.  An innocent animal had to die in order for the sin to be washed away.  In fact, I heard it preached that when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God killed the first innocent animal to pay for their sin and to cover their nakedness.

Here are some of the offerings:  The Burnt Offering, The Grain Offering, The Fellowship Offering, The Sin Offering, The Guilt Offering.  God made it possible for each person/family, no matter their financial status, to have access to atonement.  If you don't have a ram or a bull, you can bring a pigeon or a bird.  I always find this book fascinating to read.

Numbers:  The first time I sat down to read this book, I thought I would die from boredom.  Just the opposite.  I thought it was going to be all lineage blah blah blah.  At first it is, "Take a census of the whole Israelite community...," said God.  But that's not the whole story.  A widely used verse is in here, "For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed," Num 22: 6 (end) and the story of Balaam's donkey can be found in Num 22:21.  I was thrilled with the stories tucked into this book.

I started by listening on  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/Gen.1
You just have to keep track of where you are because there's not yet a feature to do that for you.

Then I wanted to read it out of my own Bibles.  I use the New Living Translation and New International Version depending on the mental illnesses and physical disabilities.

Find what works for you.
Do some experimenting.
I like to mix it up so that I don't get bored.
Reading, listening or watching God's word .
It becomes something I look forward to each day.

After all, the God of the universe, of all creation:

• knows how many hairs are on my head
• collects all my tears in bottles
• keeps them in Heaven from all the days of my life
• knows my voice from all the other voices when I pray
• protects me from fiery darts I never know about
• provides all my needs
• gives good Gifts
• wrote the Bible so I'd have an instruction book and a love letter from Him

It doesn't get any better than that!