Hi!

I'm going to try to sneak in a quick blog while I'm making dinner! Last week, I missed blogging but I was just really too pitiful to get on here and say what was on my mind. I figured it would have done no good for anyone! It was just a rough week, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and even socially. Sometimes my blogs may sound confident, as if I'm saying, "Oh, wow, look what I've discovered and look how easy all this is!!" If you ever take that home after reading, please remember this: I am a total and complete mess whose sound mind at any moment of any day is because Jesus has mercy on me. There. Now you know. :)

Anyway...speaking of Jesus having mercy...I have really had a breakthrough I would love to share! Whether it is the adrenal fatigue, or depression, or whatever, I was beginning to fear getting up in the morning; I wondered what I would face, and I wasn't sure anymore if I could handle what I would face. It's been like this for years, because some days I feel good and then on those days I can keep commitments, get things done, and feel pretty positive about my life, and then many days, I feel like I didn't sleep at all and I just want the day to be over before it's begun. When there are days like this in a row (which last year was pretty much every day), it definitely starts to get to me, and I forget who I really am and how I normally feel about all God has given me. There's the background, here's the good news:

On Sunday, the message/worship was about spiritual warfare. I felt like God was speaking directly to me, saying, "You are NOT a slave to what circumstances and feelings and moods, even sickness, that you wake up to!" I realized it was the enemy, it was Satan, who was taking these weaknesses of my body and life and turning them into something more than they actually are. I realized that I am not the enemy; my body and mind, even as carnal and flesh as it is, is not the enemy. My weaknesses are not the problem! The way I was allowing Satan to USE my weaknesses against me was the problem. Those weaknesses can be tremendous strengths with the right perspective: turning them into dependence on the Lord, bringing sacrifices of praise which are beautiful in His sight, and making my life "limited" to His will (not taking on more than He actually wants me to). It is awesome to not see myself as something to be feared, to not see myself as the enemy, because truth be told, I was treating myself like the enemy. I was not living, eating, taking care of my self like a person would who loves herself. I do have an enemy though, and I know how to deal with him! It is amazing how fast he has to flee when we declare that we will not agree with him, that we will not live by the thoughts he puts in our mind first thing in the morning!

I don't have power over these circumstances, and I don't like to pretend everything is great when I'm walking through quicksand. But I do have power, by God's presence and grace and truth, over what these circumstances do to me. AMEN!