Keep a Journal
Be honest with God about how you feel. Write it down in a journal. This helps you process your pain and gives you a “voice.” Even if you never share it with anyone, it helps you express your feelings to God. It keeps it from getting “stuck” inside of you. God already knows anyway, so why not give it a try. See if you can relate to the women’s stories below.
Is it OK that I’m messy right now?
(Struggling Wife after a “Big Fight”)
I feel sad. I want to cry and let it all out — but it just seems stuck inside of me. I’m afraid if I just let go and cried and cried I would be one big blob on the floor, unable to pull myself together. Unable to function. I wish I could hit a “pause” button on life and confront my “brutal reality.” But I can’t. Life keeps happening. The house needs to be picked up, the kids need to be fed, and bills need to be paid. But if I could, I would just cuddle up in my Father’s lap and CRY. I would let Him take care of me and let Him handle all my “to do” list. I need Him to make sense out of this chaos and loss and desperation.
I feel sad. Am I ever going to love again? Will I ever be able to TRUST anyone again? I wonder! I just don’t know if it’s possible or if I should just walk away. It seems easier to walk away. To put it all behind me and START OVER. I don’t even know where I would go. I think I would just Run away…keep running and not look back or stop long enough to think about what I just did. I wish I could close my eyes and pretend it’s just one BIG BAD DREAM and when I wake up everything will return to normal. Whatever normal looks like! Who knows?!!
Please Lord, scrape me up off the floor and breath “life” back into me. Change my thoughts. Help me to identify Satan’s lies. Keep me from getting discouraged. Give me strength to do what’s necessary and wisdom to let everything else go. Give me peace when I take time for myself without feeling guilty. Help me to make that time a priority. Provide for us. You know our needs. We can’t make it without YOU. Do this even though we don’t deserve it — just because you love us.
Love me Lord. Find beauty and worth in me. Delight in me. Treasure me. Pamper me. Embrace me. Whisper to me. Laugh with me and cause me to laugh again. Walk beside me. I need someone to notice me right now. When you look at me God, do you see all my flaws — or do you see what I am becoming? Do you see the end result or just the mess? Is it OK that I’m messy right now–that I don’t have it all together and that I need your help? I really need your help.
Thank you, Lord!
I am broken into a million pieces … unable to pull myself together.
(Young Mother with Pre-schoolers)
Angry! Tired! A Big Mess!!! I feel broken into a million pieces and lying on the floor unable to put myself back together again. I cry out to God but can barely hear His answer. I hope and feel hopeless at the same time. I’m so tired or depressed or hopeless — I can’t tell which. I just want to sleep my day away while nothing gets done around me. Yet I can’t sleep. I just lie there restless, worried . . . my stomach tied in knots. Can God fix me? I’m angry that I can’t get my act together, but I’m stuck. I don’t move forward only backwards. I need major help. I don’t want to live like this. I hate my life and where it’s going. I feel like it’s my fault that I can’t pick this “heaping mess” up off the floor and be productive — get something done. The dishes are in the sink, toys clutter the floor, laundry undone, Christmas lights still not on the tree. I’m wasting my day away with nothing to show for it. Yet I’m unable to move.
WHAT DOES GOD SAY?
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed…Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.”
(2 Corinthians 4:8-9, 16-18)
