In The Battle

I'm feeling very "blah". Its really a bit worse than "blah". I feel like I have a weight on my chest...like the weight of the world. I feel like I am on the verge of a panic attack. Like I have everything very carefully balanced and the slightest bump will send my entire world crumbling all around me. I just want to go to sleep so that I don't have to think about anything. To make matters worse, it upsets me that I feel this way because I SHOULDN'T feel this way. I know better. I'm the preacher's wife, for goodness sake.  I should be thankful and grateful and happy and joyful. I have so many things to be thankful for and I feel...."wrong" for not being over the top bubbly and happy and all "God Loves you and so do I".  But the fact of the matter is, I don't feel that way, not today at least. Now that I think about it, I am "yeah whatever" fairly  often. Not quite as often as I am "God loves you and so do I!", but more often than I think I should be. And then I'm thinking...ya know what? I don't really even like myself. I am a jumbled up muddled up mess most of the time. How in the world can I write anything of value when I am so very... not together? It always comes back to writing with me. I can do laundry and cook supper and read with my kids whether I love myself or not. I have tremendous insecurities about my parenting and wife-ing abilities,  but I can go through the motions even when I feel like I am falling apart. I can't go through the motions when I write. Writing is my mirror. My words reflect my heart back to me and sometimes I don't like what I see. So,  I struggle every day to see what God sees in me and can't for the life of me understand why He keeps me here. So I am sitting here and I am thinking... and I'm depressed. 

 

And then I get the following email....

 

Just wanted to drop you an email to tell you THANK YOU.

I have been reading your blogs (as you know) and studying as I go.

Your thoughts are so encouraging to know others feel and wonder the same as me….but you have such a great ability to write them, and plant them on “paper”.

Thank you again for being you. For being my distant friend that I have no hold backs of saying how I feel, and being the Christian and encouragement you are!

 

To be quite honest, I don't know what to do with that because the FIRST thing that hits my heart is overwhelming gratitude for  this distant friend who listens to my rambling and doesn't judge me harshly...and cares enough to send me an email to encourage my heart. Then I am immediately overwhelmed that God would prompt her heart to encourage mine, because I know it has to be at His urging because He is the only one who truly understands how I struggle. And I am encouraged. Maybe God can use me. With all my self-doubt and insecurities...maybe He can actually use me. And maybe it's better that way because by allowing all of this I remember that I need Him, that my strength comes from Him and that, whatever I write, comes from Him and is for His glory and not mine.  

 And all of a sudden I feel...almost bold... maybe even  courageous...and I believe that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, here on my little blog in all of my brokenness, writing about the Lover of my soul.

 I'm reminded that years ago God prompted me to share about the battle we fight against Satan and his minions. We don't choose our battles with Satan. He gets me where he can, and all too often he uses my insecurity and self-doubt against me. Today, that is the battle I am fighting. Perhaps I am not alone in this.

Through all of this, I am reminded that my God is big... no, huge... and He can do immeasurably great things through ordinary people. He did it all through Scripture and I wonder, did the folks in the Bible feel insignificant and wonder if what they did mattered? I believe that we really won't know how we impacted the world we live in until we get to Heaven. Until then, I will serve Him in whatever place and capacity He puts me, so that when my time is done, I can rush into the arms of  One who knows me best and hear Him say the words my heart so desperately longs to hear, "Well done".