What a whirlwind of feelings and emotions I am dealing with.
I am to be married in a week's time from tomorrow. I have waited for this day for so long and cannot wait to be with my love everyday. I hate saying goodbye, I hate not seeing him for a day or two or three.
But I'm also afraid. I'm afraid of being faced with my own selfishness, of having someone always around to see each and everyone of my faults that are so easy to cover up when I am living alone. I'm afraid of having to face my own sin that I have constructed blinders to ignore. From what I've read and come to understand, marriage is rich with blessings... and some of those blessings are hard blessings - sanctification. It is the closest relationship on earth, and by nature it will force us to confront sin in our own lives (that is, if we hope to have a healthy marriage). Are we up to it? I pray to God we are.
These steps we are taking are tremendous steps and they are driving me to prayer more and more. I have experienced stagnation in my prayer life over the past years - largely I think due to the "control" I feel I have over my own, single life. The more I keep outside influences and people at bay, the less there is I feel that is outside my realm of control, a false sense of control albeit.
I thought my dog, Heidi was going to die yesterday. She took a new medicine and I think it caused an extremely adverse reaction. I felt that I spent most of yesterday on a death watch. Thank the Lord, she's doing better today.
I think I'm so attached to her because she was there with me through my darkest times of my health struggle. I've had her for over 8 years. She can be a nightmare at times - barking, jumping on people, making messes - but she was there with me when all I could do was sleep day after day, when I had no energy to work or go places or even prepare meals for myself. I remember one day when I was laying on the sofa watching tv and she climbed up on the other end of the sofa, laid down and started inching her way towards my head until she got right next to me and just laid there with me. This was when she was still crazy hyper (thankfully, she's calmed down a bit in her older years) and would hardly sit still for a moment, but she did to comfort me.
While I was dealing with all of that yesterday, I kept thinking to myself - how in the world will I manage, if the Lord blesses us with children, when they get sick? I felt like I could hardly function yesterday. I couldn't focus on anything, hardly got anything done, and I was so worried about Heidi. How much more difficult will it be with my kids? Talk about being driven to my knees in prayer... how do parents do it?
As it is, I worry a lot. And in comparison, it's about stupid stuff. I could have a field day when it comes to my family. Oh, to trust my burdens to the Lord...
One week, and I will be a wife. I am so excited for this new journey in life, and so scared about the new trials I am to encounter. May the Lord find me faithful.
Showing posts with label Fears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fears. Show all posts
Friday, January 21, 2011
Saturday, November 6, 2010
What is it that I live my life for?
I have had the opportunity and privilege to sit under the teaching of the Word of God more in my 30 years than many people have in their entire life. I've read through the whole Bible, been involved in all sorts of ministries (and still am) and yet I find myself going through the motions, trying to get to the end of each day and get as much time as I can for myself... to rest, recuperate, be entertained, collect things, impress people...
It is a tireless existence often lacking joy and peace.
Every so often, I remember why I'm on this earth - to glorify God and enjoy Him forever and to make His glory known to others - and I live by that for a short while. But it quickly evaporates and I'm left in the doldrums again.
At my church, we lost a wonderful woman at the age of 50 to a heart attack. I don't like being reminded that this world, this life is temporary. I prefer to live in oblivion, not paying attention to the future and thinking that this good life I've got right now will continue on indefinitely. But what I have isn't the good life. It's filled with good things, good by most people's standards. I have a loving and supportive family, a fiance who loves me dearly, my own home, a full-time job, a car, enough money to live comfortably, dear friends (near and far), a good season of health, a church that I love and enjoy ministering in, and the list goes on.
Sometimes I think, it can't get much better than this. Soon things will start to go badly. I will lose people close to me (even though they gain heaven I will still grieve), something will happen with my job and/or I won't have enough money to pay my bills, my car will die (more money going out), my health will get worse, I will turn from God's purpose in my life to seek my own will...
When I write them out, I guess those are my biggest fears. Daniel is always telling me to stop worrying about stuff because most of it never happens. I understand that and agree with him, but I have a hard time putting it into practice.
I am afraid because my current support structure consists of those things that I am afraid of losing - people, money, comfort, friends, earthly possessions.
My dependence is not on God alone. I have allowed many things (thorn bushes, Matt 4:7) to rise up and choke out my spiritual growth. It is here that my Reformed theology starts struggling. The growth in my life is not caused by me. It is only a product of God and the Holy Spirit working in my life. My attempts at righteousness can never produce something good because I am soaked in sin.
This year in our study groups at church we studied a book, The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. It was convicting to read an approach to sin from a reformed perspective. Yes, it's God that causes the growth in our lives but we must do all that we can to ferret out the sin that tries to take hold in our lives. I fear there is much sin that has taken hold in my life, and I have just let it make it's home because it requires less energy to pursue holiness.
My pastor offers Biblical Counseling at our church and has a vision to have a counseling center one day. He asked me about pursuing certification because he thinks God's gifting in my life would lend me to minister to others in counseling. He has seen what others have seen in me before. I spent a good amount of time counseling girls during my time at Word of Life whether it was in the dorm as an RA or my summers spent in leadership at the different camps. I saw the fruit of God's word in their lives and I was blessed tremendously by using the Word of God to encourage them to obedience and submission to God and His plan for them. It was much easier for me to do it then, as I was still young and my life felt unencumbered by sin and mistakes (I also thought too much of myself).
Eleven years later, I have endured some very difficult trials. I have been broken more times than I personally felt was necessary, and I've been having a hard time picking up the pieces. Instead, I feel as though I'm waiting for the next breaking, the next sorrow, and I'm trying to make the in between times as comfortable and mindless as possible. I'm running away from life rather than living it.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
-Romans 7:24, NLT
It is a tireless existence often lacking joy and peace.
Every so often, I remember why I'm on this earth - to glorify God and enjoy Him forever and to make His glory known to others - and I live by that for a short while. But it quickly evaporates and I'm left in the doldrums again.
At my church, we lost a wonderful woman at the age of 50 to a heart attack. I don't like being reminded that this world, this life is temporary. I prefer to live in oblivion, not paying attention to the future and thinking that this good life I've got right now will continue on indefinitely. But what I have isn't the good life. It's filled with good things, good by most people's standards. I have a loving and supportive family, a fiance who loves me dearly, my own home, a full-time job, a car, enough money to live comfortably, dear friends (near and far), a good season of health, a church that I love and enjoy ministering in, and the list goes on.
Sometimes I think, it can't get much better than this. Soon things will start to go badly. I will lose people close to me (even though they gain heaven I will still grieve), something will happen with my job and/or I won't have enough money to pay my bills, my car will die (more money going out), my health will get worse, I will turn from God's purpose in my life to seek my own will...
When I write them out, I guess those are my biggest fears. Daniel is always telling me to stop worrying about stuff because most of it never happens. I understand that and agree with him, but I have a hard time putting it into practice.
I am afraid because my current support structure consists of those things that I am afraid of losing - people, money, comfort, friends, earthly possessions.
My dependence is not on God alone. I have allowed many things (thorn bushes, Matt 4:7) to rise up and choke out my spiritual growth. It is here that my Reformed theology starts struggling. The growth in my life is not caused by me. It is only a product of God and the Holy Spirit working in my life. My attempts at righteousness can never produce something good because I am soaked in sin.
This year in our study groups at church we studied a book, The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. It was convicting to read an approach to sin from a reformed perspective. Yes, it's God that causes the growth in our lives but we must do all that we can to ferret out the sin that tries to take hold in our lives. I fear there is much sin that has taken hold in my life, and I have just let it make it's home because it requires less energy to pursue holiness.
My pastor offers Biblical Counseling at our church and has a vision to have a counseling center one day. He asked me about pursuing certification because he thinks God's gifting in my life would lend me to minister to others in counseling. He has seen what others have seen in me before. I spent a good amount of time counseling girls during my time at Word of Life whether it was in the dorm as an RA or my summers spent in leadership at the different camps. I saw the fruit of God's word in their lives and I was blessed tremendously by using the Word of God to encourage them to obedience and submission to God and His plan for them. It was much easier for me to do it then, as I was still young and my life felt unencumbered by sin and mistakes (I also thought too much of myself).
Eleven years later, I have endured some very difficult trials. I have been broken more times than I personally felt was necessary, and I've been having a hard time picking up the pieces. Instead, I feel as though I'm waiting for the next breaking, the next sorrow, and I'm trying to make the in between times as comfortable and mindless as possible. I'm running away from life rather than living it.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
-Romans 7:24, NLT
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