What I Learned in Church Today

I have God in my corner.

This sentence is important for two reasons. One: I am not alone in life. Two: this is a fight.

To elaborate on numero uno, I feel lonely. I feel out of place. I feel lost. I feel sad. I feel unhappy. When I am in this dark place all I want to do is wrap up in what I imagine to be a big, fluffy, dark gray Snuggie and hide. I want to cuddle in it, I want to be comforted in it and I do not want to leave this place. I want nothing more than to sulk and feel sorry for myself. I want to wallow in my self pity. I want to lash out at people, especially those who are kind to me and I want to tear them down. I want to feel the power that anger gives me and I want to fuel it. And lastly, I do not want to get out of this state. It is easy to be here, it is comfortable and it feels like home.

This past week I have given up eating at night. Since I've really had clean cut abstinence (this is how I would define sobriety from my food obsession: not night eating / bingeing / throwing up) for the first time. I've not had anything to hide my feelings with. It's like I gave up cigs and am white knuckling it. Now I'm left with a bitchy attitude, a gloomy disposition and all of these feelings. I can't even tell you what I'm feeling. If someone asked me "How are you?" I couldn't answer them. I just know it's been harder to be a decent human being lately.

To elaborate on two, I can't expect to be protected from sin by sitting down. It's like putting on football pads and then thinking it won't hurt when you get hit. That's just stupid. And welp I'm pretty good at stupid. HOWEVER, I'm learning.

I always thought of praying and God as being peaceful. Church to me, until recently, was a building filled with love, stained glass, flowers, little kids in church outfits. While it is that, it's so much more. Church, faith and God are tools that I get to use everyday in my struggles to fight against sin, sadness, despair and lies.

Our sermon series is called "Storming the Castle." We've talked about being equipped with the tools to fight against evil.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the...spiritual forces of evil." Ephesians 6:10-20

You have to stand up to evil and say screw you. You can do this by being strong in who you are in Christ, this will help remove the lies that evil put in your head. Our minds are battle grounds. Here is where all of the conflict, the fighting, the torture happens. This is where the negative is magnified. This is where I spend a lot of my time. Misconstruing things. Over analysing. Making truths out of lies.

But today I was reminded that this is evil's doing. Not God's and not my own. I was reminded that He is on  my side and He wants the best for me.

There are two ways to look at things, the negative and the positive. I can dwell on the negative, I can sulk here and let my anger boil and my sadness surround me or I can say FUCK YOU and take action.

I can ask for His help and guidance. I can count my blessings. I can keep putting one foot in front of the other and live the life that He has given me.

Two things that have helped me immensely lately are:

Do things you don't want to.
Like I didn't want to approach my boss about a schedule change, I didn't want to go to church this morning, I didn't want to stop eating, I didn't want to make an out reach call when I felt like throwing up. But I've done all of those things and I feel so much better after.

The other is live for this moment right now. When in church my mind was wandering, when can I eat next? I need to find a campsite for Memorial Weekend. I need to do laundry...a lot of laundry. When I am living in the future, or worrying I am missing the present. I was missing the blessing of church and God's word. Living for the now is refreshing, it's freeing and my gosh it makes life so easy.

So let go of whatever is ailing you at work. Some dude who won't call you back. Your aunt's surgery on Wednesday. Deal with it when the time comes, until then enjoy today because it is the PRESENT.

I also didn't want to journal. I wanted to watch Zoolander and curl up in my UW Snuggie. But now I feel better and am going to get to that laundry thing...

God bless