~Psalm 23:3-4
"Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word."
~2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."
~2 Thessalonians 3:5
How great are those verses? A restored soul, eternal comfort, good hope through grace, a heart that is directed by God to focus on His love and the faithfulness of Christ! I need and am praying for each of those things!
People talk a lot about waves of grief, but sometimes I feel like I'm being hit with random "waves" of depression. I haven't dealt with long-term depression for quite a while now, thankfully, but yesterday was one of those days when I just felt suddenly overwhelmed by stress and deep sadness... and there wasn't enough food, TV, and sleep in the world to make it better. I could go into detail on my thought process on days like that, but I know it's not rational or healthy, and it's probably best to keep it contained in case it would be "contagious" to anyone else reading. Saturday was a good day, so I'm not completely sure what triggered it. And after praying, listening to a sermon, and reading the Bible for a while last night, I'm feeling much better and basically back to normal today. I think I am gradually getting better at recognizing it and fighting through it, but some days, it's a much bigger effort than others. And I guess that's okay. May the Lord always redirect my heart back to God's love and the steadfastness of Christ!
On another subject, and a similar battlefield of the mind, I'm not sure if it's just me or it's an oldest child thing or what exactly, but in areas of life that legitimately should be about me (school, health, career, etc.), my mind's default setting seems to be pleasing others. For example, I worked hard to make good grades and behaved well in school to please my teachers and parents... rather than seeing them as my support team and working hard because I genuinely wanted to learn and grow and develop. It's subtle, but it's definitely there. Right now, I'm supposed to start keeping a food journal to go over with my trainer at Fitness Together. And I can feel myself wanting to omit certain things just to make it more pleasing to her, as if this is all about getting her approval. It's the warped mindset that led to the binge/purge cycle five years ago in an effort to hide the truth and please my trainers. It's hard/impossible to live a healthy life with an unhealthy mindset. So I'm praying about that and working to correct my motivation... to view my trainer as someone who is on my team, supporting me and working with me, and to work hard and change my habits out of my own desire to become a healthier and stronger person!!! #workingonit #workinprogress
Finally, on the lighter side, here's an almost 10-minute slideshow I made for my nephews' birthday (Triston and Carter are both April b-days)... sadly, they were unable to play it at their party yesterday, so I'm sharing it here and on FB since I spent lots of time creating it. lol Josh and Rach and Brooke and Chris loved it, so it was worth it if only for that!! :)
Happy Monday! Hope your week is off to a good start!! :)
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