weekend countdown

One of my favorite songs is on the radio right now… “I’m already gone… I’m feeling strong… I will sing this victory song…”
Especially this line… “so often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key”…. I know I’ve blogged it before. I just really celebrate the concept of breaking chains. There’s a Christian song by Chris Tomlin (who I love… youtube him!) that says, “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free…my God, my Savior, has ransomed me”…. And the Beth Moore study on Breaking Free…. To realize that the things that hold us back are completely within our power to change… is probably the most liberating epiphany we can have.

I don’t believe in the whole “power of positive thinking” thing… it’s more than that. You have to do more than wish something into existence. That’s a great first step. Being able to see beyond your circumstances is incredibly empowering. But there has to be the physical movement on your part. You have to walk outside of whatever prison you’re in… and sometimes… it seems easier to stay with the devil you know than risk the devil you don’t. Only, it’s not really easier.

For some reason, God keeps putting me in situations where I’m challenged to speak a positive word over a negative situation. Just like with Dean… some of these situations yank me out of my comfort zone and force me to revisit issues and feelings I’d rather leave buried. God knows what He’s doing. He knows that these are my opportunities to reconcile some things in my heart and mind. He also knows that I can speak from experience. I didn’t volunteer for the training necessary to be able to comfort someone with a broken heart but I have it… I might as well use it. My goal from the day I woke up and began healing was to be able to share my story in a way that glorified the Healer and didn’t overdramatize the hurt. I can’t tell you that I’ve got it all right yet. I just know that the more I share my story, the more that I see people who are far more interested in the “picking myself up and dusting myself off” part of the story, than they are with the part about how I got knocked down in the first place. Interesting, isn’t it? Don’t we have the tendency to want to make sure people understand just how bad we hurt before we believe that they can possibly have anything constructive to say about healing?

And so I find myself in the path of women who are facing broken marriages.... young girls who are just figuring out who they are... people facing illness... betrayal by friends... and on and on. There is no end to the hurt in this world... the uncertainty... the fear... and I don't have a magic wand or a quick fix but I do know that God gives us what we need each and every day if we love Him and believe in Him and ask Him.

Without a doubt, my self-analysis continues. My analysis of –not just the last relationship – but all of my relationships over the years. It was only the other day that I realized that this is the first time I have been completely unencumbered of any relationship at all with any man at all since junior high school! There has always been some guy… somewhere… who was a romantic interest of some measure… and regardless of the relationship, there was always comfort for me in knowing that there was “somebody” who I considered “my guy”. Here’s the great thing for me… I am finding more comfort in the realization that I am completely content with there being “nobody”. Truly, I’m not without a safety net but there is no designated person who I can expect to see periodically. It definitely has allowed me to grow as a person and figure out what I can do on my own. It’s also allowed me a relationship with God that in the past has always been diverted by other allegiances.

Now the radio is playing “Age of Aquarius”…. “let the sun shine in….” I love it!

Well, this won’t be one of those typical Friday countdown entries. I need to beat the bushes today and scare up some business. We’re almost at the end of the month and I have one life policy sold – but it’s a small one. I need a little more cha-ching so I’ve got to stay focused. Mary, you were right about the steroids making me feel better. I truly do feel better than I have in awhile. I don’t think the roid rage has hit me… I got a little snappy at Austin last night for busting in my bedroom door every five minutes. I said, “just leave the door open…” And I haven’t got the munchies yet either. I’m down a pound since yesterday. Odd, right?

Austin went with his girlfriend’s family to the food pantry yesterday. I knew they were poor but I didn’t realize how poor. I send money every week to help pay for his food and snacks since he’s there from dawn to dark every day. I wish I had more to send… him being there this summer has been such a huge blessing for me. He came home with a box of food for us too. I started to refuse it… rice, dried beans, jelly, peanut butter, pancake mix, syrup… but then I remembered what my bank account looks like and the fact that school starts in two weeks and I’ll be buying school supplies… and I remembered praying on the way home that God would help me stretch my resources. Austin was so proud that he helped. It was really sweet. And it was yet another example of the manna from heaven that falls on us every day. It’s amazing. I don’t want the problems but the truth is that if I never had a problem, I’d never know that God could solve them… (that’s also from a song).

The CT scan went fine this morning. Completely non-invasive. They wanted to do the scan without contrast because –something about calcifications show up more clearly without contrast?– so no IV. The only inconvenience was having to take off my underwire bra… and the creepy tech reminding me to put it back on before I left. Seriously. Like I was going to forget to put my bra on. Oh, and they had moved the imaging center since the last time I was there but it only took me about five minutes to figure out where the new one was. I was in and out in thirty minutes or so and was only five minutes late for work. I call that a pretty effective way of dealing with things.

Need to get my game face on… seven hours until the weekend!