Joy and Thanksgiving

My (Aimee's) brother told me about this book that he was reading.  He was really enjoying it and asked me if I had ever heard of it.  I hadn't, so the next time I was over for a visit I borrowed it.  It's a tiny book and only took me a couple of hours to read.

The author of the book has been working as an Army chaplain for longer than I've been alive.  The focus of his short book was on joy and thanksgiving, finding joy in the Lord and offering Him our thanks no matter our circumstances.  He said that he felt that God was leading him to this understanding.  Bringing Bible verses to mind.  Through circumstances in his own life as well as among the lives of the people that he served in the armies.

His point was that we need to praise God for whatever situation we find ourselves in.  Not praising God when we recognize that it could be worse (that's true, but not his point), but actually praising God for all of it, the good and the bad.  He gave the example of a man who came to see him because he was afraid that his wife was going to try to commit suicide because he was being deployed.  She had threatened it the last time that he was deployed.  The chaplain asked the man to come back with his wife.  He encouraged the man and his wife to pray, thanking God that he was being deployed and that she felt like killing herself.

In the book, he admitted that they looked at him like he was crazy at first.  And I have to admit that as I was reading I paused and wondered to myself whether he was crazy.  Why would someone thank God for feeling like committing suicide?!  I didn't understand.  But as I read more, I started to understand.

He pointed to verses like Romans 8:28,

          And we know that in all things God works for the good of those

          who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

He talked about God being in charge.  Totally and completely in charge of everything.  Not in charge of most things or at most times.  But everything!  All the time! 

So what does all of this mean? 

Nothing is ever a surprise to God.  He knows the choices you are going to make.  The situations that you are going to find yourself in.  He has a plan for you and His plans will not be thwarted.  We can thank God for the stuff that is bad because we can have faith that He's going to use.  Like the woman who wanted to kill herself: it's true that the situation was not great, but if she hadn't gotten to that place, then she wouldn't have gone to see the chaplain, she wouldn't have opened herself up to God, and she wouldn't have found herself on the path of joy and growing faith that she wound up on.  And it all started with wanting to commit suicide.  I think, when you think about it that way, that you can see why you should thank God for something even like the feeling of wanting to commit suicide.

Are you confused?

When I finished the book I still had to think about it for a while.  And pray about it.  But I'm understanding it more and more as time goes.

What do you think?  What circumstances should you be thanking God for?  What's keeping you from connecting to your joy?

What's your story?

Sweet Spot

Recently, I (Aimee) attended a workshop that was all about understanding what specific mission God created me for.  The man leading the workshop asked the question: where is your “sweet spot”?

I want to ask you that same question.  Do you know where your “sweet spot” is?  Where you shine?  What God created you for?

I don’t mean in the big picture, what were we created for, in general.  I mean you, specifically.  What is it that God created you to do?  To be?

I know that Sherann’s passion is to share the Gospel with young people.  I know that my passion is to help young people who are struggling with their faith.  But we’ve also put a lot of time and thought and prayer into figuring these things out. 

What about you?  Have you put in the time, the thought, and the prayer to figuring out where God wants you to be?

If you're asking yourself why this matters, then let me ask you one more question that the man leading the workshop asked us: are you willing to let go of the good stuff in order to take a hold of the best stuff?

God has a plan for you.  He created you with that plan in mind.  He wants the best for you.  And the best for you is to do what you were created for.  So, where's your "sweet spot"?

What’s your story?

Honesty

I (Aimee) thought that I was becoming depressed.  I admitted it to a friend just last night.  I was diagnosed clinically depressed once before in my life and I remembered some of the similarities of the feelings that I experiences then and what I’ve been experiencing recently.  I just returned from a missions trip, somehow, depression seemed like a logical explanation for the swirl of emotions lately.  And, it’s possible, that I am really moving towards depression, but I have a new theory now.

Being jet-lagged when we returned, I picked up a new book to try to keep myself occupied during the daylight hours so I wouldn’t think about how much I wanted to go to sleep and then maybe I would make it until the evening.  The book I chose was fiction intentionally because I hoped to get swept up.  I wasn’t disappointed.  There was romance and action and drama and misunderstandings and miscommunications and separations and reunions and unexpected twists and turns and (very important in my list of criteria for a good story) a happy ending. 

I have the tendency to become very emotionally involved in a story, whether it’s a book or a movie.  I know it’s not a curse, but I don’t know if it’s really a talent.  Stories take me on an emotional roller coaster along with the characters as they deal with happiness and pain.  I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember (probably always have been).  But after a couple of days of reading, it occurred to me that I hadn’t cried with the characters (as I would have in the past), and yet, at the same time, somehow, strangely, I felt more like me than I had in a very long time.  That really confused me.  I didn’t know what to do with that.  I dismissed the thought to a little craziness brought on by my continued jet-lag.

When I finished the story was when I started to wonder if I was becoming depressed or just going crazy from exhaustion.  I felt exhausted, there was no denying that.  And everyone that looked at me saw it.  But I also felt like crying.  Not the usual silent tears that might escape during the sad part of a book or movie.  No.  I felt like sobbing.  I felt like I had been holding back emotions for years that now needed to get out.  Again, I tried to dismiss it to exhaustion from jet-lag.  But then, yesterday, I cried.  And I let myself cry.  I didn’t try to stop it.

I didn’t cry for very long at all; just a few minutes.  But I cried very hard.  And I spoke to God about it while I cried.  I didn’t understand (maybe I still don’t, this is just a theory) and I begged Him to help me understand.  After my tears subsided, I felt the logical side of me reminding my body that I had things to do that evening.  So I went back to focusing on what needed to be done.  I fully expected the tears to return when I was alone in my room at the end of the day.  And I was okay with that.  I was also still praying for clarification and I knew that might require more time and more tears.  Pain has often been a source of clarity for me in my life.  Putting things in perspective.  Bringing healing.  Allowing me to move on from the pain.  Some people avoid pain.  I never exactly welcomed it, but I didn’t shy away from it.  I simply accepted it when it came.

When I made it home last night and crawled into bed.  I talked with God, still expecting to feel the need to cry.  The next thing I knew I was waking up in the middle of the night.  I rolled over, thanking God for allowing me to sleep so soundly.  I praised Him for knowing what I needed the most.  And I went back to sleep.  This morning, I discovered my new theory: I had been hiding from deep emotions for so long, and allowing myself to get involved in the story had unlocked them.

When my father left when I was a teenager, I cried (when I finally did cry, shock kept the tears away for about a week) for hours.  I lost an entire day in tears and conversation with close friends that I could trust.  After that, I moved on.  I have cried other times for him, but always fewer tears and with less desperation, until they stopped after a couple of years.

When I broke my engagement about 7 years ago, I came home and cried for several hours, crying myself to sleep that night.  I spent the next couple of days in a haze half the time and talking with trusted friends.  Slowly moving forward.  Feeling less need to cry.  Getting the emotions out and facing them.  Slowly … moving … forward.

About 3 or 4 years ago, we had a family issue that had many of us stressing out as we watched, unable to do anything about it, as a family member made poor choice after poor choice.  I prayed.  What else could I do?!  One day, on the phone with my pastor, while asking for prayer, I broke down in hysterical sobs and cried very hard for several minutes while my poor pastor listened to broke statements of my thoughts and feelings about everything that was going on.  It helped.  For the moment.  However, the issue wasn’t resolved, so the pain didn’t really dissipate.  I started avoiding books, TV shows, and movies that would make me emotional.  I had too much drama going on in real life.  I didn’t need the fictional world adding on to it.  For the first time in my life, I intentionally avoided pain.  I stopped crying.  I assumed that, in time, the issue would be resolved, and that I would be able to go back to the way things had always been.  I continued to pray.  But the issue didn’t get much better, only a little, and I continued to avoid pain.

Yesterday, I allowed myself to weep for something besides joy for the first time in years.  There may be more tears to come.  I won’t try to keep them away if they do.  I suppose they must be back logged.  I haven’t dismissed the possibility of a small depression.  It still makes sense and may even be a part of this releasing of my emotions.  I don’t really know what all of this means, except that things are going to be different.  How or by how much?  I don’t know exactly.  But I’ve never been afraid of change.  And I know that I am in the arms of my loving heavenly Father and that He knows what’s best for me.  So, I place it in His hands.