Today at work was a day! I was glad it was only eight hours! I wasn’t sure it would ever end.,. Unfortunately I started off the day with a sinus tooth ache… It was almost as bad as a migraine. Nice huh? That alone was pretty bad, but then two people in my class kept arguing… loudly over the TV. They each wanted to watch their own show. At the same time…, with only one TV. Needless to say one or the other was constantly losing and protesting, loudly!
As if that were not enough, “it” chose today to hit. Yeah you ladies know exactly what I mean, that lovely monthly thing some call “Happy Time…” I was not happy!
I began to wonder “Is this day over yet? “The answer to that came in a beautiful rainbow of wax cylinders flying thru the air and landing all over the floor in my room…Yep you guessed it, someone spilled our huge box of crayons all over the floor.
Finally as the day was winding down, I had peace that I had indeed survived. As I was doing one of my last duties, helping load the busses for the trip home, one of the drivers asked me “How are you doing?”
Since I knew he was a Christian, and I knew he would understand, I said, “If I only had happiness, and didn’t have joy, I would have had a bad day! My happiness left long ago, but it left joy in its wake.”
He just kind of laughed and said, “Yeah sometimes it’s joy unspeakable huh?”
I’m not totally sure how he meant it, but I’ll tell you how I took it, Sometimes the joy that God gives, joy in the midst of struggles, joy when the world is in turmoil, joy at unexpected moments, that joy that makes absolutely no since shouldn’t even be there.
That is Joy unspeakable!
Although you have never seen Christ, you love him. You don't see him now, but you believe in him. You are extremely happy with joy and praise that can hardly be expressed in words
I Peter 1:8
The youth group tonight started a discussion (that I came in on rather late, as I was helping out with kids & couldn't get there quicker, sorry guys, for the interruption!) about something that I feel pretty strongly about... suicide. First, I think you may want to know why I feel this way.
As someone who (long story short) has struggled with self-worth issues & depression most of her life, I was pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon when I came across ideas that made me feel important. I had an eating disorder in junior high, became a practicing Wiccan, went goth in high school, skipped school, wrote obscure poetry & song lyrics about death & loneliness... you get the picture. I was one of those. So when I had a particularly bad breakup (that followed a terrible, co-dependent relationship), I felt I needed to end it all. I felt that THEN someone would listen, THEN someone (ANYONE) would pay attention. So, I took a whole box of medicine, hoping I would just fall asleep & never wake up. I woke up the next morning, upset that I hadn't just ended things, but didn't know that I was pregnant. I attribute that second heartbeat with saving my life, tell me I'm wrong. I dare you. So, I had thought that I needed to end things to never, ever, be lonely again - that people would be SO sorry they had ever ignored me, or rejected me, or just plain not giving me their love.
But wait.... listen to this next line -
I. WAS. WRONG!!!
I was lied to, everything in my life told me I needed to hate myself, that the only way I would ever be worth anything was if I was a part of someone else, that I could somehow glom onto their worth, and it could be my own. That I could "bewitch" someone or seduce someone into something, if I only concentrated hard enough. And that set me up for a whole mess of failures, the sting of every one feeling like an earthquake in my soul. See, I know what it feels like to be that person... and God set me FREE from that. Since the day that happened, I have never ever felt like a worthless, hopeless, or helpless person. I know my worth isn't because of anything I have done, but what He has done for me, and what He can do through me, if I only allow Him to. He has shown me that I am His child, always have been, and that He LOVES me, enough to send His son to be humiliated, betrayed, wronged, beaten, broken, and after all of that, to take on everyone's sin - and He never did a single thing wrong! He was allowed to experience every single human emotion, without ever succumbing to sin, and He died - for me, for you, for the very people who spit in his face, for the ones who don't believe, for the ones that are cutting themselves to temporarily stop thinking about their pain, for those who are drinking their worries away, for those who are abandoning their children, for the ones who habitually lie, for those who hurt other people for no other reason than they want the high of control, for every single person who has ever & will ever walk this earth.
My heart hurts for you if you think you are worthless, that you have nothing... you have everything. He has done everything for you - accept it!! Healing, acceptance, justice, peace, companionship.... whatever you need (more than you need!!)- just accept it - it's a free gift for all of His kids! You, right now, are a prince, are a princess, and YOU ARE WORTH IT ALL.
Ps, I have a website for you. It's www.twloha.org, thanks to a friend who went to school in Florida, I found out about them years ago, for those who don't know what they're all about, here's their mission statement, copied directly from their site:
"To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery." People know what you're going through - do NOT hesitate to ask for help. You ARE worth it.
Oh - and I love you. :D
We love you too Stacey! Thanks for sharing.
I recently had an argument with someone, you know who you are, and you know I still love you, we just disagree. The statement I made that they disagreed with was “There is no reason for two people who are actively perusing God to get a divorce.” Their argument was that I had never been in a bad marriage, and they had. Actually, let’s see I’ll call you… Kira, I don’t know any Kiras, and if a Kira reads this, you’ll know the name is a pseudonym. So anyways… Kira said “You don’t know, you’ve never been in a bad marriage.” Well that shut me up for a minute or two… However, I am kinda funny that way, if something bothers me I have to simmer on it. Not as in getting mad, but just honestly consider it, sift it, and decide how I feel about it. I learned long ago not to trust my emotions. Emotions are like a runaway dog that needs to be leashed and told where to go. No matter how I feel that doesn’t make it true. If I make the right choices, the right emotions will follow.
For example… (haha wish the dots made noise, dut dut duuu) lol I don’t always feel love for my husband, but I always love my husband. I CHOOSE to love him, but the warm fuzzies got a cold shave many years ago… But because I keep choosing to love him every day, eventually the warm fuzzies come back… and leave, and come back… Does that mean I stop loving him when I don’t feel it? No, I am committed to him. I choose to love him even when I don’t feel it.
Now that is why it hit me a few days later, I have been in a bad marriage. We have had days, months probably even a year that we… well let’s just say love is not an accurate word for what we felt at that time. I fall out of love every day and jump right back in.
