On my mind

"I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say,
'My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.'

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers is and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him."

Lamentations 3:17-25

My heart and mind remain deeply grieved. I feel cut off from hope, but I want to hold on to God, or rather, I ask Him to hold on to me through this pain that does not end. I am compelled to keep walking in His ways. What else could I do? Still everything inside is shattered and I have smelled death of all that blossomed last year and seen fires burning up what once was good and blessed in my life.

This is not the life I wanted to live, but it is the one I have been granted and I believe that He will enable me to use it purposefully.

I cannot begin to imagine what could be on the other side of this anguish, but I pray that I will faithfully endure...whatever it takes...and that one day my barren soul would be restored in some sense, though I know not how.

Divided and quartered

Lately, it seems that I'm trying to operate on several levels and that I'm divided between different directions. It's been a challenge to keep up with the things that have been entrusted to my care. Although I have been able to do it, I still feel wiped out much of the time. It looks as though the summer will be like that, too, only that the specifics of what I'm working on will change.

I'm hopeful that I won't take on more than I can successfully complete, but I'm not entirely sure that I can know what all I will be able to maintain simultaneously. For better or for worse, I haven't done much to relax or enjoy time in several months and don't imagine that there will really be time for that anyway. You see, relaxing and having fun actually takes a certain kind of effort and energy that I don't have and so somehow I can work and work and by God's grace alone, be renewed, but I can't apply myself to just being and I know that if I sat down to do one of the things that usually brings me gladness that right now it would feel lifeless and empty because I'm sad and when I am as sad as I am, there isn't room for happiness to really take hold or sink in.

Okay...more thoughts on the mind & body

Whoa...can I just say that last week was very full?

I'm sorry I did not post...but I'll try to get a few in this week.

Alright, so I was particularly engaged with this concept of people having a part of the brain that corresponds with our free will. It is at this juncture as thoughts are passing through that we have the opportunity to accept or reject the information. I suppose thus far I have imagined that free will is largely spiritual and so I was fascinated at the idea that God would provide physical aspects of our brain that aid us in this function. :)

Since there is a relationship between the brain and the heart, this explains why we can sometimes make decisions that we can be confident about and other times we are thrown into confusion.

When we are submitting our free will to God and living a life that is sensitive to Him, our brain and heart are more in line with one another and we are more inclined to make sound decisions (this cuts back on stress, friends!).

However, conversely, if we begin to take a few steps away from God, our brain and heart are more susceptible to falling out of line with one another. Result? Confusion and unsettled feelings and thoughts that can even make us feel sick, troubled, depressed...you name it.

Dr. Leaf also indicated in her series that attitude, hope, and free will are closely interwoven. Ouch, ladies. Attitude? You mean we are responsible for it and we need to keep it under control? Yikes! I think I'd better go sit down... ;) Anyway, she said that there are some steps we can take to work on this: be aware of your attitude as thoughts are coming through your mind, choose not to react to your first emotion, and control your thoughts. Wow...here we go again, right? Taking thoughts captive to Christ is not always easy.

In my life, I might have victory in some areas (i.e. the devil doesn't have as much of a hold on me in my thoughts about my body/self image as he used to), and in other areas there is progress (i.e. i mess something up in the kitchen and as i enter into the condemning thoughts about how i can't do anything right, i'm irresponsible, i could never manage my own household, and this is why i don't have a husband and kids...God can't entrust those things to me...then I have to stop somewhere in the litany and tell myself what is true about God, His character, and what He thinks about me as His daughter). Still other aspects of my thought life are in an even further state of disarray...and on those fronts, I lose the battle often, but at least God forgives me, corrects me, instructs me, and I get back into the fight.

Perfect peace

Laura Story's song 'Perfect peace' has really caught my attention in the last few days... here are the lyrics:

stay close by my side
keep your eyes on me
though this life is hard
i will give you perfect peace

in this time of trial
pain that no one sees
trust me when i say
i will give you perfect peace

and you'll never walk alone
and you'll never be in need
though i may not calm the storms around you
you can hide in me
burdens that you bear
offer no relief
let me bear your load
cause i will give you perfect peace
stay close by my side
and you'll never walk alone
keep your eyes on me
and you will never be in need
though this life is hard
know that i will always give you perfect peace
i will give you perfect peace

Thinking affects our living

A friend of mine loaned me a DVD series called 'Your Body, His Temple." The series is about the relationship between what happens in our brains when we go through the process of thinking and how this impacts our physical health.

Here are a few tidbits I found helpful:

Based on how we process the information we receive (how we feel about it/our attitude), we will either react with a response of fear or faith.

The good news is that free will gives us the option of accepting or rejecting the information coming in through our senses. So, if it's no good, we can reject it.

This comes as no surprise, but messages that are coming from the heart will affect our behavior. Unfortunately, when we become overly stressed, confusion happens in the mind and heart, making it more difficult for us to make good choices. As stress takes over, we can't hear our hearts since they become blocked by stress chemicals.

Small spurts of stress are a normal, healthy part of our functioning because they help us to be alert and activate our body's systems to prepare to respond. The trouble comes when we remain in this state of stress too long and our body releases too many chemicals which erode the healthy, protective system our body's usually operate under.

I have to go, but I'll post more on this next week. (I took notes...)
Happy Easter!

Digging up the dirt

For many months now, the place where I work has been under construction and for the majority of that time, to the untrained eye, it just looks like they are moving around bigger and bigger piles of dirt. Only recently have I seen traces of an actual structure being put up. Now that I can actually see something, I find myself reflecting on how much my spiritual life parallels that construction site for the new building. It may take a long time of preparation where God appears to be shifting large piles of dirt in my life. From the outside looking in, I've no idea what exactly He plans to do with all of that dirt! It looks slow and messy and He keeps stretching out the territory of the construction site. But, eventually, there will be a foundation laid and beams put up...He will fill in all the things that I cannot see and build up where places have been torn down. Oh Lord, that you might sustain me in the meantime, that my faith would not fail when day after day and month after month, all I can see is that you are digging up the dirt.

Significance of Jeremiah

I've been reading and working in Jeremiah last week and this week in preparation for my bible study lesson a few weeks from now. Our book covers the oft-quoted 'Jeremiah 29:11' and much to my chagrin, it seemed that this was the book I should teach from...even though I'm not a big fan of this verse being thrown around.

So, as the time has come to work through it, I am reading the book of Jeremiah and seeing what some good commentaries have to say about the history of the book, the character of Jeremiah, the themes that he addresses, the attitudes of the people of Judah, and how all these things shed light on the significance of Jeremiah 29.

Now, I can actually say that I am glad to lead this lesson because we will discuss all these things before we approach the promise in Jeremiah 29:11. As some have said before, if all we ever focus on is the good news, without really understanding the bad news, the good news doesn't seem quite as good to us after awhile. We get used to it and we can take it for granted.

Jeremiah's call to the ministry of prophecy comes with telling God's people a lot of bad news. It is out of the stark contrast of all that they are facing and have yet to suffer as judgment that Jeremiah brings a word of encouragement...God has not forgotten His promises to them. Repentance must come first, but if God's people will turn to Him, restoration will come. God has not delayed or fallen back on His promises. He will surely bring hope and healing to His people. The difficult pruning they were facing was not the end of the story, but it was necessary to bring about a proper harvest.

Make way for the King

Lately when I look at my life, on a good day I think that perhaps all these things that are going on position me to meet the Lord in a way I haven't encountered Him before. I'm approaching a place where I can't do much out of my own strength and I have great need of Him. Even though I continue to find myself inclined to believe things that are less than what is true, lovely, noble, and excellent, I also sense this increasing longing to be filled and an expectation that God will provide something in response to that hunger.