COLOR YOUR WORLD BETTER; Use your imagination for good not evil

 

Color Your World With Light

The pain of being traumatized especially by someone who was supposed to care for you as a child can color your whole world....in dark gray monotones.

I hate to say this, but for most of my life I have seen Giants instead of Milk and Honey, especially in regards to people.  I always imagined people were saying or thinking bad things about me, a lot of times before I even met them!  And many times, especially afterward.  Talk about dark, negative thoughts...

But lately, God has been re-writing my story.  He is turning the river of pain into a river of forgiveness.  He is turning self-focus into Himself and Others' focus.  Let me be clear, this takes A LOT of work on my part.  God does the miracle in my heart, but I am the one working to CHOOSE forgiveness,  to CHOOSE to let go of inflated (or deflated, but anyhow, anyway WAY TOO MUCH FOCUS ON MYSELF)!  I pray and ask him to remind me anytime I have a negative thought about what others are thinking or about my own performance, or any other specific outcome.  He Does Do IT.  It is very eye-opening about this driver of anxiety.     

Back to the nuts and bolts of it.   So anytime I have a thought like that or even sometimes just for practice,  I imagine situations GOING WELL!  I imagine my desired outcome.  I imagine connections and good relationships with others.  I actually picture it and 'see' it within my mind.  

This is basically using faith, like Caleb and Joshua did in the promised land.  The Israelites sent them and 10 others to spy out the land they were going to take over.  Everyone except Caleb and Joshua saw GIANTS.  Caleb and Joshua said "Ah shucks!  They aint nothin'!  With God on our side we can overtake them!  It is a GOOD land, flowing with milk and honey.  Sadly the people listened to the negative voices and allowed them to overtake the good ones.  You can read about it in the Bible in the book of  Numbers 13 and 14.   

I feel I need to warn you as well, not to turn away from this 'simple' answer to defeating anxiety.  It WILL work with patience,  much hard work changing your thoughts and God's help!  I turned away from faith once because I thought it was 'too simple' of an answer for my issues.  I sufferent greatly because of it and caused suffering and grief within my family.

But thanks be to God, who is faithful and true, slow to anger, quick to forgive!  He has seen me through all trials and will continue until the Day

Dwelling

 

I was reading The Broken Way   and struggling to make it through the first few chapters.    And I had the thought that Dwelling on the Bitter does not make it Better.     I also had the thought that it really is your (my)  [lack of]  self worth that is the main contributor....If we get that straightened out.....knowing, believing Our Value.....the pain subsides

Sometimes it's like you're a flag on a flagpole and you just have to hang on.

Sometimes it's like you're a flag on a flagpole and you just have to hang on 

There are so many instances where this statement applies...Sometimes you are in a job where you keep working your but off and you keep getting passed up.....hang on.

Sometimes you have an addiction that tempts you daily.....hang on.

Sometimes you are  tormented by your own anger tempting you at every turn to blow up....hang on.

Sometimes you are just plum tired and have to keep working...hang on

Sometimes anxiety courses through your mind and affects your body, too, and you can't control it....hang on

Sometimes the temptation is the quiet type, like depression that cuts like a knife in your heart, and it's all you can do to hang on.

Sometimes it's all of the above at once, in a hurricane force gale....and you have to hang on for dear life!

I was having a day like that yesterday....and talking to God usually helps. He usually leads me to a comforting scripture or message of some sort.  But .....

                                                  there 

                                                   was

                                                  only

                                                 silence.

 I tried confessing my sins.  I asked for prayer from friends.  I tried just listening.........nothing.             Nothing worked to get me out of my oppression.

The only verse that was last in my mind that morning before going to work, was .....Wait Upon The LORD......so, I did.....only barely.......I was like a scrappy mess emotionally.....like one of  those flags that have seen its better days,  but are still out there, flying,  hanging onto the pole.

I'm writing this to encourage you.  At the end of the day,  I finally got my message from the LORD.  It was simply BELIEVE.  A lot of the things that were tormenting me were problems that I have been dealing with. The rhetorical question hanging in my mind was......

Are you going to believe?   

Are you going to believe things are going to get better or are you going to hang onto your pessimism, your grouchiness, your "I hate (fill in the blank-with whatever you are hating right now)"  attitude?    It really is that simple.

You still have to endure the dark days that feel like you're in a tunnel and you are never going to get out.  But on the other side of the tunnel, you are faced with 

What               will                you               believe?

I CHOOSE to believe things are going to get better with the situations/problems that I am facing.  I CHOOSE to  believe we am going to come out on the other side, victorious!   I CHOOSE to believe, that though I am a flag on the flagpole today,  tomorrow I will be walking on solid ground across the bridge of faith to an unknown GOOD plan that God has for me!

As for me and my house,  we will serve the LORD....Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. 

Joshua 24:15

I am giving credit in this article to the LORD, of course, and also to Steven, my husband, who inspires me and encourages me every day to CHOOSE BELIEF......because that's how he lives his life!

the tender hands of God (with awe)

 My God,  You are so tender with me

Even, espcially when I am harsh with myself

God, my God 

how you love

with passionate abandonment

Sip the sun

 

As I sip the sun on brilliant Saturday morning, 

my imagination takes me to the mansion overlooking the wide valley with the creek running through it.  

I imagine its me sitting up on the cozy glass-enclosed porch viewing the scenic beauty and musing about the morning or taking a stroll onto the overhanging deck, cup of warm brew in hand.  

breathing in the cool crisp clean air of winter and the magnificent scenery.  

but atlas,  I labor along the creek bottoms, following a deer track in the early rising sun... 

THIS is my preferred workout.  

There is no sight of the creatures, now,  only the evidence of matted down grass in places and  some bones along the edge of the creek (succumbed to a pack of coyotes, no doubt) the abundance of which  I heard in evidence on a previous evening walk; the multitude of yips and howls which sent me scaling back up the hill from whence I came.  

But in the day, I am fearless and the creatures of the night are the ones in abeyance (for now).   

The only one, the marvelous mutt by my side

As we sip the morning sun together in our morning nature walk to otherworlds

Peace... Restful Sunday steeling into my soul

 

Pure Sabboath

Watching the Robins

Seeing the Geese with their flashy white reflecting dazzingly in the sun

The water turning into liquid gold, lapping the shoreline

The occasional call of a herring gull

the roaring of distant falls as a backdrop

a slight breeze rustling the prairie grass at my feet

The hammock beckoning

Sunday steels into my soul

 

I am free because I forgive those who have hurt me, including molestation.

I am free because I walk in faith.

I am free because I look to Christ every day for the strength to do the above things.