The Purpose in the Pain

I wrote a post over two years ago detailing my battle with depression and anxiety. I'm hesitating writing this for all the reasons I should write this. This list includes but is not limited to:
1. It won't be perfect.
2. What if I say something wrong?
3. Do I really want people to know about this?
4. BUT I'M IN SEMINARY!
I went off my anti-anxiety medications in October of 2014-the same month I visited Southwestern. Life wasn't cupcakes and butterflies-it was actually filled with two stomach bugs, a sinus infection, and bronchitis (I was very sickly). But life was pretty good. I stopped going to counseling because we didn't have anything to discuss. I was good. My relationship with God was good.
But then, in January, my world came crashing down...again. I won't give too many details, just really to say that it was like the first time I went through this but harder. I spent time in prayer and ended up back on my medication. It was hard.
When you go through a season of depression and anxiety once, it's hard. Earth-shattering, heart-wrenching kind of hard. When you go through it a second time, it's harder. I thought that I had already put in my time with this battle, that this fight was already won. Yet, God allowed me to struggle with this once again. I was angry, hurt, frustrated, and confused. But most of all, I was exhausted. I began counseling again, and devised a 4-step plan to deal with my "episodes." This plan was
1. Accept that you are having an episode.
2. Remember you aren't the only person who has ever felt this way.
3. Say something you're thankful for in this very moment.
4. Identify what triggered this episode.
I went through this plan 2-3+ times a day. I was preparing to go to seminary when I could barely drag myself out of bed. How could I be in seminary if I had gone through this twice?
But God was faithful. He was busy doing something that I'm still not even sure what it was. He still is doing something. The verse that helped me in this period was Philippians 1:6- "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." I know in my last post I said that throwing verses at a depressed person might not be the best solution. It still probably isn't. Yes, scripture helps. But a verse without a person there to comfort and a verse without Christ isn't going to do a whole lot of good. But y'all, I clung to that verse like I was on the Titanic and it was the only life jacket left. God had brought me through the first time, He would bring me through the second. God was faithful in bringing me to Carson-Newman and paying for it, He would be faithful in getting me to seminary-depressed or not. Why do I continue to doubt my Lord when He proves himself over and over again? Because I'm human.
What was different about this time around was that I knew how to handle it. And that made it more difficult. I knew how to prevent panic attacks. So I would do my breathing exercises, think positive thoughts, go through my 4-step plan, and find a friend to sit with. But those things don't cure anxiety and depression. Do you know what does? God. (I am not saying that doing breathing exercises doesn't help-it does, and I sure know it).
I desired for these "medicines" to cure me, including my anti-anxiety medication, but they can only help. None of these things are inherently wrong. Trust me, God and I have had a lot of conversations on if I actually need to be on my medication. For now, I do. But He constantly reminds me to never put a earthly solution in front of a Godly cure. He gives us these coping mechanisms to help us. He gives us counselors, medications, breathing plans, 4-step plans, to help get us through the situation. But as soon as we substitute these things in the place of Christ, our lives begin to fall apart.
I slowly, but surely, got better all in God's timing. He's reminded me of who He created me to be: a cupcake making, crafting, dancing, spastic, crazy, overly-emotional, awkward human being who sometimes starts to skip in Target and does the macarena when things get really awkward. I love life. I do what I love and I don't understand why God has blessed me by giving me two jobs that I absolutely have fallen in love with. God reminds me even as I'm sitting here writing this, that I was created by Him and everything He has made me to be has a purpose. My depression and anxiety will be used to glorify Him. My crafting will be used to glorify Him. I'm not entirely sure how my skipping around in Target will be used to glorify Him, but I have learned to never underestimate God.
So yes, I was depressed twice. Yes, God pulled me out of it twice. Yes, He might allow it to happen again and He will continue to guide me through it. While I continue to doubt Him, He continues to pursue me. And that my friends, is the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Life, Recently

“I’m fixing to start my senior year of college in the fall. Didn’t I just graduate high school? This can’t be real.”

This is the phrase I keep telling myself over and over again in my head. “This can’t be real” is a feeling I can’t seem to shake. Yet, it is real. At least I hope it is, and I don’t wake up in some crazy inception/matrix like fashion and have some weird reality thrown at me. I’m a twenty-one year old ADULT (I still can’t get over that), and the only things I legally can’t do are run for president and (affordably) rent a car. I’m old enough to be married, start a family, buy a house, take out loans, pay bills, and all the other “big girl” things that I’ve always said will happen when I “grow up.” But reality tends to set in rather quickly.

I most likely intend on going to Seminary after graduation (the destination is up in the air, though I have a few places I’m leaning towards), and I almost hyperventilate when I think about having to FIND AN APARTMENT and LIVE ON MY OWN. Don’t even get me started on paying bills or finding a job. Granted, I’m very capable of cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and other “household” chores. When you have three siblings and working parents, you learn how to do these things. But, I feel unprepared for other things of the real world. My mom mentioned something about an “equity line” today and all I could think about was if I was supposed to know what that was. I don’t even know what to do with a W-2 when I get one and all the technical terms for anything involving money make me a little dizzy just thinking about them.

Yet, I’m at peace. How is it possible that I am, on paper, completely unprepared to survive in the real world-a place supposedly high school and college were preparing me for- and still feel completely safe and not worried. When I keep my eyes on the Father, it’s so easy to breathe easily and not worry about the future. A few days ago, as my family-minus 2- sat down for dinner, I was feeling completely irritated, annoyed, and angry. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me, and frankly wanted to go into my room and have a good “woe is me” cry. You know the kind-especially all my female friends out there. The one where you sit in bed, possibly turn on your Norah Jones or classic 90’s boy-band break up music and sob, wishing someone would take pity on you and buy you a pint of ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s Cake Batter, please, if anyone’s wondering). My family bowed our heads to say grace, and immediately all my worries, doubts, frustrations, and annoyances disappeared. How can that be? How can saying “Hey, thanks for this food, God,” immediately calm me? I was focusing on something other than myself for that split second. I said, “hey, let me get over my frustrations and MYSELF, and focus on the One constant in my life.” No matter how crazy, annoying, scary, or frustrating the future or even present may be, focusing on the Lord has such a calming thing to it.

Back in February, at DNOW, I was telling my sixth grade girls that in order to refuse to let sin defeat us, we must focus on something greater than ourselves. When we look at sin, it really is like a delicious, Krispy Kreme doughnut hot off the conveyer belt of deliciousness. We can tell ourselves- hey don’t eat that, it’s not good for you, you’re going to regret it, but if we constantly stare at it, it is going to be almost impossible not to give in. But, if we turned around and saw a HUGE, never-ending pile of Chick-fil-A (that was non-caloric and non-fattening, of course), we wouldn’t think twice about the Krispy Kreme. The same goes with sin. It is so hard to have “woe is me” sessions and be engaged in complete sin when our eyes are on the Savior of our souls. The one who is infinitely better than anything my brain could even fathom desires to have a relationship with me! Me! The one who sometimes chooses to DIRECTLY ignore his calling on my life and He still died for me! I don’t know about you, but if someone just straight up ignored me and slapped me in the face all the time, I’d have a hard time dying for them. So why do I sin? Why do I just say “no, God, not today,” all the time? But I think the better question is why God says, “Despite your sin, I still love you. Despite your sin, I still choose to bless you. Despite your sin, I died for you.”

So this is life, recently: my utter shock that I’m old enough to do things that have always been a quite distant thought, and the realization that the only thing that matters is Christ. I’m completely lost without Him, and frankly don’t want to even think about life without Him.

The Struggle is Real

               Starting at the beginning of this summer, I began to deal with anxiety, panic attacks, and mild depression. This post isn’t to get a sympathy card. It isn’t to prove anything about myself. It is to show that the struggle with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression is real. And that there are people actually going through it.

                I’ve been coming up with reasons for the past month and a half to not write this, but I think I really need to. Before I start, I’d just like to say that I’m not through with this. It’s something that I may have to work on for the rest of my life. This is, by no means, easy to talk about or easy to write. But I do believe it is necessary. Maybe there is someone who will read this that is going through a similar situation or knows someone who is. I know many of you who will read this have no idea that I’ve been going through this, but I think being transparent is what it necessary. Telling people that Christians go through this, no matter how invincible we think we are. This world is not perfect, and it will never be perfect. Y’all, the struggle is real.

                While I do not intend on sharing every single detail of the really, really long story here, I plan to give you an overview of what happened this summer. At the beginning of the summer, I prayed that God would make the hard prayers my prayers. I almost (notice I say almost) wish I could take that back. Because He answered that prayer, loud and clear. The way He answered that prayer was most certainly not what I wanted or expected. I intended this summer to be an awesome time growing closer to God, working at my church, and just hanging out. I remember telling someone the day before this started happening that I finally felt, for the first time since I went to college, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

                On the first of June, I couldn’t go to sleep. At all. I had this awful feeling that if I went to sleep, I was going to die. I would try to go to sleep, then jerk myself awake when I was almost asleep. When I get stressed, I get these muscle twitches. They kept happening that night. Well, the next night, it was hard for me to sleep, but I finally did, and these feelings passed. Another night, about a week and a half later, it happened again. Then a few days later, it happened again. This became full-blown panic attacks, that started happening during the day. I couldn’t eat, because I felt like I was going to throw up if I put anything in my mouth. I lived off of fruit and smoothies for a while. I began feeling depressed in the afternoons, every single day. I would cry. All the time. A wave of emotions would come over me and I would scream, cry, shake, almost hyperventilate, and just curl up into a ball. It was awful.

                I began going to see a counselor. It helped some, but pretty quickly, she told me I needed to be on medication. So I started taking Zoloft. While I do believe that the medicine has helped me, I’m not going to say that I want to be on it. I don’t. But, for right now, it is what helps me.

                When I had these “waves” of depression, all I wanted to do was lay down and not do anything. Sometimes I would cry. I would feel like there was absolutely no hope in my life. Everything that I enjoyed doing no longer appealed to me. I, however, would continue throughout my day as best as I could. It got worse when it started interfering in my relationship with Christ. When I began to think that there is no way a true Christian could go through something like this. That I must not be doing something right for this to happen to me. This is a lie. Something that is totally false. I, of course, thought that when we have trials, it all must come from the outside, people trying to kill us and stuff. But our trials can come from the inside too. And they are scary. I don’t know about y’all, but one of the people I trust the most is myself. Of course, this sounds totally self-centered, and maybe it is, but I’ve always felt that I am the person I can rely on the most. I will get it done. I will volunteer to bring this or that for a function, because I know I will make it happen. When I began to not be able to trust myself or my emotions anymore, that’s when things got really bad.

                But God is teaching me so much through this. This has radically transformed my prayer life. It has transformed the way I look at a lot of things. While this has not been my plan, nor would I ever want to include it in my plan, God has a perfect plan. And He will not give His children more than they can handle- with Him, of course. I’m not going to make a list of all the famous Christians that have battled depression and anxiety, because, in my opinion, it doesn’t really help. Yes, it is encouraging, but for someone in the middle of this battle, they don’t really care who has gone through this, just that they get out.

                For anyone that has gone through anything like this, I’d just like to say don’t be afraid to tell your story. People need to hear it. Did you know that 50% of Americans will deal with some sort of depression in their lifetime? And 1 in 4 Americans are on some sort of anti-depressant drug? Those numbers are astounding to me. This sucks, y’all. It really does. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it’s no fun, but it’s all good. It’s not. At all. Do I fully believe that God is going to use what I’m going through for His glory and His glory alone? Yes. Am I going to say that it’s easy to go through this? Absolutely not. If you are not a Christian and you are going through something like this, I cannot even fathom what it must be like. As dark as these past few months have been, I’ve at least had a “flashlight” to help me through. I pray that you would know that Christ died to make a way for us to have communion with God. I pray that you would see your sinfulness in comparison to God’s glory and desire a relationship with Him. God can help you through whatever you are going through. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. He doesn’t make your pain go away, but He will make it more bearable.

                And for those of you who haven’t gone through something like this, especially Christians, chances are that you will encounter or have encountered someone who is or has gone through this. My best advice for you is to PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, do not just throw a Bible verse at them, say “I’ll be praying for you,” and walk away. It’s a copout, y’all. It truly is. Guess what people who are going through this need? They need love. They need a constant friendship. One who will literally be there every single second of every single day, making themselves available to talk, text, or sit there in complete silence with while they cry. Because, once again, this sucks. They do not need another Bible verse. Many times, these are meaningless. The Bible verses I found on my own had so much more meaning than the ones people told me. Of course, when I texted my friends and asked for prayers, I knew they couldn’t magically come to Alabama and be there for me. This is not directed towards someone who cannot be there for someone. And sending Bible verses to someone is great. Praying for people is great. I am not belittling any of these actions. But just ignoring the problem and patting their shoulder saying “there, there,” is seriously the worst thing you can do for someone who struggles with anxiety and depression. Just because you don’t know how to react to someone when they tell you this doesn’t mean you get to ignore the problem. Ask how you can help. Pray for guidance. Don’t be afraid of someone who struggles with this. The fact that they told you about it means that they want help and they know that they need it. So be there for them. Pray for them constantly. Because God is truly the only person that can completely mend our brokenness.

                The main reason I am writing this now and not a year from now or when all this is over, is because I am still going through it. Granted, it is nowhere near as bad as it was this summer, but it is still not good. You always hear stories of depression and anxiety after someone has gone through it, not during.

                Once again, this post isn’t to get a sympathy comment. It isn’t to show you how I’ve managed all of this. It is to show you what God has done, is doing, and is going to do in my life. It is to raise awareness about how we, as Christians, handle when people struggle with this. It is to tell someone who is going through this that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a God who wants to lead you to that light. It is to tell you that there is a Savior who has died to show you that light. If you are going through this, or have gone through this, talk about it for Pete’s sake. Because keeping quiet doesn’t do any good. I can’t tell you how many people I talked to about this that say they have gone through the same thing or know so many people who have. Raising awareness about it only can help.

Thanks for reading!

Meghan

Procrastinating...Then Procrastinating Some More

                Yeah, I know…it’s been almost seven months since I last posted. I can’t say that I didn’t have time. I did. I had time upon time upon time. But the problem is, is that time that I had bookoodles of was filled with me trying to figure out ways not to be as stressed out. I’m not going to lie. This past year was HARD. Sophomore year beat me up, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I tend to internalize my stress. My outsides never truly reflect how stressed I am. This may seem odd because when you see me stressed, I’m running around ready to scream. But that’s just it, I don’t scream. I don’t let my stress out. I keep it all bottled up inside till I have an emotional breakdown. Many occurred in private…a few in public. But the thing is, all this would be solved if I would just RELY on GOD.

                Rely on God, I say. Now I dare you to give me another phrase that we use in our daily walks as Christians that is thrown around so much, but so hard to act upon. No, really, I dare you. I can’t think of a single one. Not one. I stress, worry, cry, vent, and pull my hair out. But I don’t rely on God. My friends tell me “Meghan, you have to start relying on God! You are way too stressed!” I know this. So why don’t I? Why don’t I do the one thing that I know for a fact and without a doubt in my mind will relieve me of all my worries, fears, and anxieties? I guess that’s the human thing about it. No matter how secure we are in our faith, we all try to be “super-Christians.” You know those Christians who walk around like they don’t have a care in the world and that they have it all together. It’s like we believe that God has given them some sort of magical potion that makes them not stressed and anxious and worried.

                Worry is a sin. I think. Well…in my case it is. Sin is anything that gets in between you and God. It’s that thing (those things) that holds you back. So maybe other people just handle it better than I do. Maybe they don’t. But you know what doesn’t solve worry? Pretending it doesn’t exist. Several months back I was extremely upset about something. Of course, I wouldn’t let it show on the outside. Some of the wisest words that have ever been spoken to me came out of this situation. I was telling a friend about what had happened-someone had broken a promise. I said it was ok. She told me that no it isn’t. It hurts. I know it hurts. So stop pretending like it doesn’t. That burned deep. Stop pretending. Isn’t that what our society tells us to do? Look at social media. Look at facebook, twitter, pinterest, whatever. It is about more than connecting. It is about letting people know how awesome you are. Seriously. I do it, you do it, we all do it. We look at our facebook posts, our twitter tweets, our pins on pinterest. We automatically think-Who will like this? Can I get a retweet? What does this make other people think of me? To some extent, we are all products of a self-centered, vain, and conceited culture. We want others to see the good things. The cute clothes, cool friends, bible verses on how good the Lord is-which He is really good, not trying to say that’s wrong. But we hide the bad things. We hide the fears, the worries, the anxieties, the STRESS. We hide our brokenness.

                So my challenge for myself-and you if you’re willing to take it-is to STOP PRETENDING. When someone asks what they can pray about for you, tell them the truth. When a brother or sister in Christ asks what’s wrong-tell them. Don’t try to hide it. Because nothing is unappealing as a big group of fakers. Let’s be real. Let’s be really real. Let’s rely on God-as hard as it may be. But let’s ask God to help us rely on Him. That may sound crazy. It probably is. But nothing is as crazy as having the antidote for a deadly poison and not taking it, right? We have the cure easily accessible. We can reach out our arm, and pick it up. So let’s do it. And part of the healing process is being real. Let’s not pretend like we’ve got it all together. Because we don’t. But let’s exude the joy that is ours through Christ. And that, my friends, is what happens when I put things off.

                Now to close us out with the world’s best and most over-quoted (well not over-quoted, it is the Bible) verse about worry:

“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these!  If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith?  So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

-Matthew 6:25-34

Worship Defined: Lead Me to the Cross

I want to paint a picture for you: hundreds of Christians standing in a worship center at some revival or another singing their hearts out to Christ. They are singing powerful, moving words. Unfortunately, many times, the words are not taken to heart. The meaning of the words they are singing are not resonating in their hearts.

This is a common problem that we come in contact with in corporate worship. At some point in high school, I asked God to not let me sing a single word that I did not mean in worship. This radically and beautifully changed my life. I am still struggling with meaningful worship, because it really does begin with the heart. It is a journey, and I am very excited about what God is teaching me about it. 

As a Church Music major, worship, through the form of music, is something very near and dear to my heart. It is how I express my feelings to God. I absolutely LOVE it. This is as much of a challenge to me as it is to those who read it-if anyone reads this. Through the next few weeks, or maybe even more, I will be attempting to define worship songs. I will go through hymns, contemporary worship songs, and fill in the gaps.

The first song I’m going to do is heavy. It popped into my Pandora station a few minutes ago, and I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t. I have wanted to do this series for quite some time, but have not felt it was the right time. I believe that now is.

So, here’s what’s going to happen. I will post a link to a Youtube video of the song I will be talking about and I encourage you to listen to it as you read this. It probably won’t sync up (I’m not that talented), but hopefully it will help you, and me, understand more completely the Biblical truths behind the lyrics.

Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemptions hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

These are the words that open up this powerful song. I’m going to try not to break it down word-by-word, but we’ll see how it goes. It is talking about the crucifixion scene; Jesus spilling His blood for our sins. He has paid for our sins; we are covered by His blood. The last two lines are a reiteration of Philippians 3:7-8.

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross

This is the part that gets me a little emotional. I think Francis Chan says it quite well in his book, Forgotten God. “The Spirit will lead you to the way of the cross, as He led Jesus to the cross, and that is definitely not a safe or pretty or comfortable place to be.” At first, we sing in the chorus that we want to be led here. How many of us actually mean those words? I can say with all honesty, sometime I really don’t want to be led to the cross. It’s being associated with the person on the cross. If this were someone being executed in modern times, would you want to be associated with someone that is being given the death penalty? It is completely against this world and against your safety, reputation, comfort, and all that you cherish in this world to be associated with them. THIS is what we are called to do. THIS  is what we are singing that we want to do. We are also singing in this song the cry of Matthew 16:24, when Jesus commands His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him.

Jesus calls us to a life of complete and utter devotion. And this requires us to lay down everything of ours (Luke 18:29-30). This is RADICAL.

You were as I
Tempted and trialed
Human
The word became flesh
Bore my sin and death
Now you're risen

Oh, this is such a beautiful picture of the gospel.  Jesus was fully God and fully human, yet remained perfect. He sacrificed Himself for us, then rose again! This makes my heart oh so happy!

This is the main idea of the song. It is a powerful song, and absolutely beautiful. I encourage you (and myself as well) to focus on the meaning of lyrics as you sing praise unto our Savior, not just in this song, but in all of them. They are so powerful, meaningful, and beautiful!

I already have a few songs lined up for the coming weeks (who knows, maybe even days!) and I absolutely cannot wait to see what God will be teaching me through this journey!

Keep Moving Forward

Yeah, that’s  a quote from Walt Disney and the slogan from the movie Meet the Robinsons(I may or may not want the child from that movie…) I found this absolutely so applicable to my life and the life of a Christian. Last night at the John Mark McMillan concert, something stuck with me that he said:

                “Where worship exists, music happens.”

Essentially, this means that worship is not music. Music happens when worship is in your heart. Singing is something that comes natural (well…for some people, others have different forms of worship).

                So this got me thinking. I know it can be scary when I think sometimes, but just hang in there for me.

(Oh yeah, I like flow charts)

This is the thought process that went through my head last night. It was a little strange, because after I thought about this, he came back and talked about the same thing. We are saved FOR something.

                Many times, as Christians, we focus on the life that we had before Christ. The point of salvation is the most important moment in our lives. However, if we do not move forward, we become stuck in the past. Our life is a process of reaching the final goal. We are saved FOR a greater good. We are saved FROM something, but more importantly we are saved FOR something.

                Our point of salvation is oh so important. SO, SO important. However, if we linger too much on what we are saved FROM, we lose sight of what we were saved FOR (sorry about ending the sentence with a preposition, I couldn’t find a way to reword it).
                Both elements of salvation are extremely important. Don’t lose sight of either. I have talked about what we are saved from before (Amazing Grace pt. 1 and 2).

Keep Moving Forward.

The Little Things

                Recently I’ve been the busiest I’ve been since high school. It’s been crazy. Super duper crazy. I am the first to admit that I may be a tiny bit too emotional at some times in my life. But, with that being said, I have been extra emotional as of late. For about the last month, I have been crying at the drop of a hat, sometimes with cause, others not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love being busy. I cannot stand being in one place too long or not having something to do for several days in a row. But this doesn’t mean I don’t want my alone time or to hang out with my friends. I am in my room, besides sleeping and the weekends, for 3-4 hours a day, most of which is consumed with homework, checking and replying to emails, and other necessities. I want to BREATHE.

                But I think, though I’m sure this won’t be the only thing that God will teach me throughout the next two weeks leading up to fall break (for which I will be drinking coffee, practicing, and RELAXING), is that it is teaching me to enjoy the little things. Hanging out with my friends is now a privilege and something I expectantly wait for. I have always valued my friendships and been intentional about them, but it has made me become even more so. I eagerly await coffee dates (for the friends of course, not just the coffee), movie nights, and even study sessions.

                Having time for the “little things” makes my heart rejoice. I find God most brings me back to Him in these moments. When I’m walking to class and see a butterfly He reminds me of His presence. When I’m stressed out, overwhelmed, and in WAAY over my head in my Spanish class, I look out the window and see the beautiful scenery and God reminds me that He created this other language and He will help me through it if I ask. When I’m just about ready to scream because I’m just too tired and too busy, God reminds me that I just need to ask Him to help me. Why don’t I ask for help? I’d like to be able to say I really don’t know the answer, but I do. I’m too prideful. If I can’t make it a week without crying out for help, I must be weak and no one can see the weakness in me. I have to be strong. I can’t let anyone down. I can’t say no. But God reminds me in subtle ways that He came for the weak, dying, and helpless.

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins….But God, who is abundant in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah.”- Ephesians 2:1 &4-5

I can’t do it on my own. It is impossible. I am dead without Him. So, if I’m so helpless without

Him, why do I try to do it without Him? Why am I so stubborn? I am prideful.

                It is in the little moments, like stargazing with some awesome people or drinking a cup of coffee, that God reminds me that I need Him. He shows me my utter lack of ability and then shows me His infinite ability. I am weak and He is strong.  

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Yaweh is the everlasting God. The Creator of the whole Earth. He does not grow faint or weary. There is no limit to His understanding. He gives strength to the weary and strengthens the powerless. Youths may faint and grow weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.”-Isaiah 40:28-31

He is my strength. He is my power.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.- Philippians 4:13

Oh yeah, and it's fall. Who couldn't be excited about that??? I mean, pumpkin lattes, boots, scarves, pretty leaves, and that bonfire smell. I like fall. A lot.