I have been struggling for a while now emotionally, but I recently heard a great message and I had to stop and think about it. Which of course means I had to write my thoughts down to figure it all out! I thought maybe someone else might need to hear this, like I did. Or maybe you just want to read my rambling brain. Either way, here it is!
Sometimes life is HARD and I just get down about it.... that I get.
Other times life is just normal for us (which is still pretty danged hard, but not HARD) and I get annoyed at myself for being so down.
I feel like I am ALWAYS on an emotional roller coaster.
The truth of the matter is that I should NEVER feel that way.
I KNOW who has my back, and His love, His grace and His provision will ALWAYS be sufficient.
I get lonely on this journey with no human to lean on.
I often cry myself to sleep at night wishing for arms to hold me.
But the truth is that my Lord's arms will hold me for far longer than any man could.
The truth is that my Lord's love for me is deeper than any man's love ever could be.
The truth is that I CAN make it through life with just my Lord.
And I can even do it joyfully!
So why do I let the emotions run away with me?
Consume me?
Bring tears to my eyes on a daily basis?
Simple answer.....
Because I am human.
Because the enemy wants me to doubt, to hurt, and to be defeated.
And in my life, emotions are the easiest place for him to target me!
So many times it is the little things that I stress about, that I let get me down and that I let steal my joy. But the truth of the matter is that my God is mighty to save, He will ALWAYS be enough for me, and He will ALWAYS walk through the storms of life with us, carrying us when needed!
The emotions I battle daily. I DAILY have to surround myself in the Lord and His love to battle the emotional void in my life that I too often look to others to fill. But I have learned SO MANY lessons about the Lord's sufficiency over the years, especially in His provision when you are following His path.
One of the lesson I have learned, and continue to learn is His provision to those who are faithful with what He gives them.
Recent case in point:
Many of you who read here know that I am a single mom. I struggled with this choice for YEARS longer than I should have. I NEVER wanted to be a single mom, but the father of my children chose his addiction over his family and I just could not let that rule our lives anymore.
When we split I took the opportunity to evaluate our life, make some choices on how I wanted to live and start walking out the healing process. I decided that the Lord would be FIRST in all we do, and that, to the best of my ability, I wanted to live as He called us to. Mark never did those things.
I felt that the Lord was calling me to financial accountability. For years I have scrimped and saved and clawed my way our of debt. There have been many times that we have gone without extras and pleasures of life to get to the end goal. And we got there! As of a few months ago I am COMPLETELY debt free! Including ALL of the joint debt from my marriage, I paid that in full even though I didn't have to as by California law it was joint debt and Mark hasn't paid a dime of it.
I have worked diligently to use the funds we are blessed with to build a life for the children and I that they enjoy and grow from. I work HARD to pay for them to have dance lessons, play golf and chess, and to have tutors to help with school work. I make sure they get to be involved with church, and service work. And I scrimp and save to take them on special trips. We live tight, but my children are healthy, happy and involved in the world around them. I do this even when their father chooses not to pay his child support, or his share of their expenses that he is court ordered to pay. At this point in time he is WELL into the quadruple digits in arrears, and actually nearing the five digits very quickly. But I choose not to let the kids feel this shortage in their activities.
The house that the kids and I lived in for the last 2+ years was all electric. When we moved into our new home I had to turn gas on here. When I called the local gas company that services this area I was told that I had a HUGE out standing bill. You can imagine my shock and my fury when it came to light that AFTER I moved out of our old home (shared with Mark) and he moved back into it he turned the gas back on there with my name on the bill! The he proceeded to not pay said bill for over 8 months, and then let it sit in collections for another year after that. The gas company agrees that I turned service off, but says that since he added me back on his account that I am responsible to pay that HUGE bill before they will turn service on for me at our new house. To say I was outraged is an understatement. We just moved, we have had tons of extra expenses and the last thing I needed was to pay my ex husband's bill just because he won't pay his own bills. I cried all night long, I was so upset.
But the thing is I should know better than to let these things upset me.
First off, I have worked hard to be in a financially stable position. I have a cash emergency fund, and this sure the heck sounds like an emergency to me. I fought the bill through all of the channels open to me, and still lost (since he put my name and social security number on it, and they say that is legal) so I HAVE TO pay the bill so we have gas here. Yup, that is an emergency. Suck it up, spend the money and rebuild the emergency fund. I can do that, I have done it before with what God has provided for us.
Secondly, I have a God who is in TOTAL control. This is the one I forget all the time, even thought He shows me time and time again. (I guess I can be a slow learner!)
The NEXT DAY, in the mail I got a check from my insurance company. Right before the first of the year, the house that Mark owned FINALLY got sold in the foreclosure (yea.... he is THAT good at paying bills!) I carried the insurance on that house right up to the end, I was terrified that something would happen and the insurance wasn't that much. I canceled the policy in December and my monthly bill went down some (I pay all of my insurances {life, car, house and renters} with one payment a month) and that is all I thought about it. It seems that the insurance company made a mistake and only took PART of the premium off of my bill and I didn't notice. They figured out the mistake and issued a refund check. The check completely covered the gas bill that I had to pay and I got it the DAY AFTER I found out about the gas bill. Yep, my God is THAT GOOD, that even in this fallen world where people lie, steal and cheat He worked it out that we wouldn't suffer too much from it.
Could we have used that money for something fun? Sure, of course we could have. But the truth of the matter is that we didn't suffer any for having to pay his bill. Up until I got the check in the mail I did not realize I was overpaying the insurance, so it wasn't shorting us monthly. And the check came RIGHT when I needed it. There is NO WAY that could have been worked out any better to keep us on an even balance.
The lesson is this?
Next time take a deep breath and pray before spending all night crying! And have a little faith, after all, through all of the crap, He hasn't let me down yet! And He sure has taught me a LOT on the journey!
And thank you my dear friend for reminding me that, no matter the situation, our God is ALWAYS sufficient for or needs! He will NEVER let us down.
Now if somehow I could just get this message through to my emotions that get so danged lonely! Maybe that is the next lesson? Or maybe He has the answer for that too....
