christmas pic

i just figured out how to post pictures... that hotrod on the left is me, then ze bebe, followed by my brother, Lane, and his wife Melissa.

last week

Anyone who knows me knows that I definitely do not have a problem with self disclosure. I don’t really have much going on externally that I’m not open about, but like most people, I don’t parade my interior life around for all to see. That stuff is usually kept for those closest to me. I had the type of week last week that I usually wouldn’t tell very many people about. But I really feel led by the Spirit that I’m supposed to “put it out there,” and to not do so would be prideful (in the sense that my inner-self is so great it should only be shared with my choice few) and denial of what God did in my life.
Another thing that most people know about me is that I’m in love with myself. I think I’m awesome…and hilarious and pretty and smart and that people like to be around me. If someone were to disagree with any of this, my self-esteem is so iron-clad that I would just think they’re the self-absorbed one, having a bad day, etc. (You can thank my parents for this…I grew up thinking that even the way I brush my teeth was exceptional.)
This isn’t to say that I’m not painfully aware of my depravity. My shortcomings and rough edges are at the forefront of my mind, and I have to try hard to not be self-condemning. But I know what positive things I have going for me and they’re pretty unchanging and concrete. All that being said, last week was one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had. Not the “worst” in the sense of an event happening which has caused me to be in a sad mood, but just Who I Am caused me to feel just awful all week long.
I have never felt more worthless, unhealthy, lazy, good for nothing, non-essential, not special, not worth-while…the list goes on. I basically just felt awful about myself and my life all week long. I couldn’t connect with God…I didn’t want to. I didn’t really want to connect with anybody or communicate at all for that matter, but I really wanted people to communicate with me. I didn’t remember when I last felt normal. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like I had made a difference in anything. I was really pissed off and frustrated, but I had no idea why, and my anger wasn’t directed at anything. I felt really confused. I felt sick: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Ever since the hurricane, I’ve had fleeting thoughts of “you’re not worth anything” or “you’re lazy” or “you’re not pretty anymore.” But, like I said, I generally have such an inflated view of myself that I really just scoff at comments like that, so they never stayed and I didn’t think about them twice. Then, last week, all the fleeting comments came at once and stayed on me and didn’t leave. It was heavier and worse than anything I’d ever experienced like that. I didn’t know what to do, but even if I would have known what to do, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it.
There were two times when I was around my roommate that the Spirit was so strong in her that it made its way through all the junk and darkness and connected with my Spirit, and I just cried but I was still so confused about what was going on. I felt awful but at the same time didn’t have any desire to fix it. These times were really good with my roommate but didn’t really fix my problem. It was much deeper than any convo could fix, although the Spirit in her was giving me good words of wisdom of how to snap out of it.
On Friday evening (before Narnia!), I connected with the Lord again. I don’t really know how to explain it but it was sort of like I woke up and shifted paradigms and stopped thinking of things so jacked up.
He definitely gave me this word from Psalm 103: Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Pretty much down the line, the Lord called out that all that I was feeling: physically sick, emotionally in turmoil, disconnected from the Lord, undesirable and unworthy of love, super worn out and not able to get anything accomplished, the Lord promised to take care of and reminded me that He has the specific answer to all that junk I was sitting in. He just went straight down the line and rebuked all that stuff.
Then I remembered what it was like for my soul to connect with the Lord again…to want to praise him. And everything I’d been thinking on just went away. I really feel like it was probably an attack of the enemy just trying to keep me down, and that he had been planning this for a long time. I think I could have easily slipped into deep depression, but the Lord pulled me out of the pit before it went any further, reconnected and realigned my soul, and restored me. It was definitely a paradigm shift; just totally different thinking and viewing my circumstances than I had been doing that week. It was crazy and awesome and all Him and none me.
Well I just felt like I was supposed to share all this. So there you have it.