1/12/15
Be alert and of sober mind.
Your enemy the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
From my notebook…
I knew he’d be coming, Lord – I knew the enemy would be
gunning for me. I knew I needed to
prepare myself because I’d started to make an impact for You.
I knew he’d come at me, but I didn’t expect it would feel
like this. I should have known he would
come after my heart and mind – my most vulnerable places. That he’d isolate me as much as possible
& then go to work.
And once I realized his well laid plans were unfolding
before me, I felt the depression tugging again at my soul, calling me downward –
urging me to come back to the old familiar of the Pit.
But I will not go! I
will run to You, Lord God, with all that I am despite all that I’m “feeling”
because I know he is working on every emotion I have – and he will not
stop. And as much as it is my natural
inclination to turn to another human for comforting, to talk through this hurt,
I know my only Real Refuge, my Safe Haven, is You.
Let us go now to the computer and write – let us take all
the pain within and choose intently to draw nearer to God. It is not the natural instinct, but it is the
soul solace I so desperately need.
____________
All weekend I’d felt run down. Saturday I was supposed to go visit my dad
and sing, practicing with him to play for some folks at a nursing home
today. When I got up, I was so
desperately tired, I sat with my head in my hands and felt my soul collapsing
within me. I wasn’t certain how I could
muster the strength just to get dressed, much less to make the drive out to
visit and then sing and carry on. I got
up and asked, “What would YOU have me do, Lord?”
To which You responded ever so kindly, “I’m glad you asked. You didn’t
ask me before you made plans with your dad, and now that you’re here before me
I would have you stay put today and recover.
You’ve been going and going and going, and you need to rest. Stay home today and REST, Michelle.”
Oh, I was so
overjoyed to hear that!
Permission from GOD
to rest.
It is not the first time You’ve given me a permission slip,
and I’m sure it won’t be the last… I
think we all need that from time to time, to be reminded we’re not meant to go
full steam all the time. And You were
absolutely right (Of course, You are GOD after all)… As is not entirely unheard
of in the course of Michelle-ness, once I had begun writing this blog, I pushed
forward, at some point not being entirely sustained by YOU and Your power, but
relying on my own means to keep up the pace.
And very quickly I was met with sheer exhaustion – rightly so because
this project You’ve brought me to is not meant to be carried out of my own
strength (as no work You call us to do on Your behalf ever is).
When You showed me all this in prayer Saturday morning, You
reminded me how easily I could tell others that we are not meant to go about
our lives on our own power, but to lean wholly on YOU – yet here I was missing
the very lesson I was sharing so readily.
Praise You that when
You correct and restore me,
You always do so in
kindness and love and mercy.
Still though, I do bear the consequences of my poor judgment…
Because of my pressing forward and the sheer exhaustion that had ensued, I
realized I was coming down with another virus or bug. There’s an awful lot of that going around
Richmond right now. ‘Tis the season, I
suppose. Again on Sunday, I felt the
need to rest – and having just been told by God to do so, I honored that. I felt
some guilt over not having published two days in a row, but You reminded me
kindly that You never said that I was meant to post daily – that notion was
entirely my own creation. You also
reminded me You would continue to guide and instruct me through the course of
this project, assuring me that those who need to be fed will be taken care of –
it’s not all on me. How prideful for me
to have even remotely considered that it ever would have been… It was not an
intentional assumption by any means, but it was still there.
So there are two days
during which
I’d had pretty minimal social interaction –
the process of
isolation had begun
though I had yet to recognize the importance of it.
Last night, I lay in bed so exhausted from this sickness but
feeling quite alone. I wanted very much
to call a friend that I felt I was missing in the moment but was much too tired
to carry on a conversation – it was incredibly frustrating. I gathered my blankets and rolled over,
staring at the ceiling, and prayed openly to You. Be my everything – be my ALL – my Comfort, my
Friend, my LOVE, my Companion, my Healer, my Deliverer, my Provider. I asked that You would be more and more to
me in my lonesomeness, so that I would know You and experience You on every
level. I asked You to fill all my empty
spots and make the most of the quiet hour where it was just us. I thanked You for making me lonely so that I
could seek Your face to be drawn closer to You.
This morning as I lay awake in bed at some ridiculously dark
hour, again I felt so alone – I wanted so much to text or call someone, but I
knew at 4 a.m. it was highly likely any such communication might not be met
with a warm welcome. I was tempted to be
frustrated in the insomnia, but the Spirit enlightened me to choose to seek You
instead. I sang quietly, “In the
secret, in the quiet place – in the stillness You are there. In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait only
for You – I want to know You more.” I
thanked You for helping me to realize that I could use such times to commune
with You rather than lamenting the poor state of affairs that everyone else was
probably still off in dreamland. And it
was a beautiful moment… I remember we had a very good conversation; I had been
quite surprised I was able to carry a good conversation at such an hour.
Then later this morning when I got up, I felt the urge to
reach out to everyone (again the effects of the isolation) and connect… to
talk. I called my mom at work but she
was far too busy to chit chat. [The well laid plans were beginning to
homogenize even though I was still woefully unaware.] I got word from a good friend that our team
had lost the football game yesterday. I
haven’t watched in a couple years, but I knew well enough to know that my team
had done pretty well this year and yesterday’s game was against another friend’s
team – so I reached out and offered my humble congratulations.
We exchanged a couple texts, and I casually asked if he’d
ever gotten my emails. I had sent two of
great importance to me over the past two months & had never heard anything
back. Well, it turns out they never made
it to his inbox. I was devastated. To put this in context, one of the emails was
following up on a very emotional conversation we’d had on the phone back in
November. When I realized that my very
heartfelt, intensely meaningful email sent the next day had never been
delivered, I was at first relieved because it explained why I’d never heard
anything back. But almost
instantaneously following that sense of relief, I became entirely crestfallen…
I resent the message, along with a text to just let me know if for some reason
it didn’t go through this time. That he
need not respond to either of my emails, but I just wanted to be sure he got
them both.
And then I just sat there… The sadness of that realization just eating away at what had already been a building unrest within me from
being isolated the past several days.
And the devil – he is sooooooo good at capitalizing on these small
things. On taking ordinary circumstances
and stitching them together in a manner such that they have a much greater
impact on the psyche than they ever would in and of themselves… Oh, and he went
to work. I sat eating my lunch and felt
the tugging, the pulling at my mind and my heart. Oh, it was awful!!!!!
I have been so well and good for a while now that I had
forgotten what it felt like, the beginnings of depressive episodes. And I PRAISE
YOU, PRAISE YOU that You have taught me so much about active thinking –
processing my thoughts as they come – and that You have shown me that I have
the ability to CHOOSE to redirect my mind.
It is not easy; it does not come naturally… but by Your Power at work
within me through the Holy Spirit, I am capable of changing the course, of
recognizing the pull on my soul and deciding right then and there to DO
SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!! And thus, I
began writing, praying.
This is actually a most glorious occasion because what the
enemy intended for my bad has really shown me how much You have delivered me
from this awful emotional trap that used to completely control me. I used to have no means or strength or
know-how to fight it – I would always succumb completely. I would be lost entirely in the abyss. Yet, here I am more than a conqueror because
You have brought me into this Marvelous Light and shown me how to live better
by walking with YOU.
And now, having experienced it, having felt it again fresh
in my mind, I can all the better encourage those who are going through it,
those in the midst right now who have yet to learn the tools, the skill set to
overcome these battles. Praise You that
what the enemy meant for my harm, You have turned around for the good of not
just myself, but anyone else with whom I might be able to share this message.
_____________
Thank
You that whenever we turn to You,
when we
go beyond how we feel and choose to seek YOU,
You
have the Power to take all the harm,
all the
hurt that the enemy throws at us,
and use
it for good.
Help us
to trust You even when it seems totally beyond
our own
human understanding or ability to reason how,
that we
can be assured You will be true to Your Promise
to use
ALL things together for the good of those
who
love You and who are called according to Your purposes.
Remind
us when we forget...
_____________
I want
to encourage you if you're in the darkness
to
choose to redirect your mind toward heaven.
The
enemy would love nothing more than
to drag
you down as deeply into the pit as you will follow...
But if
you will ask, and keep asking,
God can
show you how to seek Him in the midst
and He
can deliver you also
from
even the darkest of depths.
If this
is something that's hard for you to receive
in this
moment, I hope you'll pray about it and listen to
Elevation
Worship's
making
room in your heart for God
to grow
your faith and trust in Him.
_____________
Until
next time...
Be
Blessed!! <3
© K. Michelle Payne 2015
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