Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Quieting the Storm Within

On my way to my meeting this morning I was so amazed at the “quiet” in my head. I realized that my biggest struggle is the constant barrage of negative thoughts in my head while I am hormonal! It is so maddening because I have not been able to tune it out, stop it, or override it for any length of time! It is truly a constant battle of the mind and my sanity!! To be honest, sometimes I just get so tired of fighting this battle I just let the thoughts come and I don’t fight or counter them… I think it may feel like floating downstream instead of swimming against the current—but unfortunately, I know there is a waterfall not too far away, so I have to start swimming again before I drift too far down.

It was so nice this morning to hear the “silence” that I was praising God all the way to my meeting. I also would imagine that it is similar to what guys deal with when they have pornographic images rolling constantly in their minds. Once the images get burned in, it is almost impossible to get them out. Tom was blessed in that God miraculously removed those images from his mind, and he described it the same way—it suddenly got “quiet” in his head when they were removed.

The other thing that I notice is that God gets bigger again. When the quiet and calm come, I remember that He is in control of EVERYTHING and I don’t have to worry about a thing! When it is noisy, for some reason I feel like I need to control more or fix or do things! But God doesn’t need me to do, fix, or control a thing. He just wants me to look to Him for all things and trust Him with and for all things.

After my meeting I went to Marteen’s and helped her fix her Christmas Eve meal for her family. We had a good time shopping and cooking together. I pray that all we did will turn out well and everyone enjoys it.

When I got home, Tom and I spent some more time talking again. He was saying how unmotivated and depressed he has been lately. He didn’t do anything I had asked him to do while I was gone, and he felt bad about that. While he was talking, I was remembering how hard this year has been for him, and I said that he was probably grieving the losses that he has experienced this year. That really affected him. He said that he has been talking about how much he has lost, but he didn’t realize that the depression and lack of motivation and all that he was feeling was actually the grieving of those losses.

He said that he feels like he is grieving the loss of “Tom Daniels” — who he once was. His thoughts, desires, ideals, and traditions… everything he built his life on before. Then I realized that I have been trying to “run ahead” of him in our walk and feeling like he is holding me back from the plans that God has for us… and then I remembered the prophecy that was spoken over me in July of 2007. She said that I like to run ahead of Tom but told me that I needed to wait for him. In this case, I need to wait for him to go through this grieving process and not rush him through it. He has to go through this and complete the process, and I need to wait patiently for God to walk him through it.

Thank you, Lord, for this insight, and please give me the strength to do Your will and not my own!

I remembered a couple times today something CT said on Saturday during our lunch. She was reading her notes from the Benny Hinn “Fire Convention” from this summer, and he said that how we can tell if something is from God or Satan is: God only gives you small bits and pieces of His plan at a time, but Satan gives you the whole thing! While Tom and I were talking tonight, he brought up a couple of instances that seemed to be from God, but they didn’t pan out that way. The first was our thoughts about doing a “Couples Retreat” in our home (or somewhere). When I thought of it, I saw the whole thing all at once… well, most of it anyway. And the other was doing house church at DD’s house. Neither one of those panned out at all.

So… were those thoughts planted by Satan? I don’t want to say God doesn’t want us to do those things, but maybe we tried to make them happen before God wanted them to. Again, Lord, help me to do Your will and not my own. Help me to crucify my flesh and desires and take on Yours.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" — Galatians 2:21–22