His Faithfulness!!

Do you ever have a problem in your life that just won't go away and you hope and pray that it will??? Well, that's something I've been dealing with. For a long time now I have been dealing with so many different emotions and internal struggles as I talked about them a little bit in my last blog entry. Today, I was supposed to work and last night I decided to give my shift away, which I never do, just to have a day to myself and do some things I've wanted to do lately. It's such a gorgeous day I'm so glad I'm not stuck working or whatever. Instead, I've been enjoying a nice "date" with Jesus at Caribou for the past hour or so. :-)

Last year I lived with my sister and brother-in-law in Indiana for just a semester. I was dealing with a lot in my life and needed a bit of time to get away. I don't think I will ever be able to express in words how amazing that time was for me. For those of you who have been on retreats and things, it was just like that, but for 3 months. I was on such an amazing God high!! Even though I was having an extremely hard time with a lot of things, I was overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord all day, every day! Well, of course we have those highs and lows in our lives in many areas of life. In our spiritual life there are so many times like that as well. So, of course when I came back to Gurnee, I had a very low time in my life. I did some things that I knew were SO wrong for me and people were telling me over and over how wrong they were, but I just wouldn't listen. I wouldn't even listen to God. I was back home now and what I had learned the 3 months I was gone was still in my head, but had left my heart and I really didn't care about it as much anymore. That caused me some major problems in my life!! I wish so badly I could go back and change those things I had done, but of course I can't and now I just look at it all as a huge learning experience and thank God for it.

As I'm moving on from all this stuff and working through a lot of things I have been consumed with depression in my life. I hate that word... depression. It sounds so awful. Well, it is!!!! In my last blog entry I talked about how draining it is for me to go on with things in my daily life and how I'm really good at covering up my feeling to the outside world. My real feeling are always shown in my room, my car or during my quiet times with God, but never really to any of my friends or family. I really hate talking about it with people because it's such a hard thing to talk over and over about and it's hard when people just don't understand. (I don't expect anyone to though.) I really feel like you don't truly understand what depression is unless you have gone through it before. It's an incredibly hard thing to live with. It's especially hard for me because I work 5 days out of the week and am a full-time student. Working, going to school, getting homework done, keeping up with other activities I'm involved in and trying to make sure to keep up with my physical and mental health is so exhausting. I have to work extra hard on things and everything takes me 5 times longer to do than normal because I have no motivation. It's really hard and I absolutely hate it! I wish I could just focus on myself and not have to go to school and work. I was so spoiled when I was in Indiana. I hope that everyone can have a time like that with the Lord like I did. Even though I was going through so much crap, I am so thankful for that time! Even when I was crying myself to sleep at night and calling out to God asking him why this was all happening to me, I knew that one day I would look back at that time and be so thankful for it. I hope that someday I will be able to help someone that goes through things like this.

During my "date" today I came across some verses that are very helpful to me.... Lamentations 3:21-23 "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning."

I am so thankful that God is so faithful!!! There were so many times that I thought I would never move on from so many of the things that were going on, but God has not let go of me and has continued to push me to go to Him for everything and surrender my all to Him. All of the struggles I have are so little compared to so much and God is such a big and powerful God, but He still cares very much about me and helping me! It's such an amazing feeling that I hope everyone can feel in their life!!

He never lets go!! Amen!

STRUGGLES

This has been a pretty incredible week for me! I got to go to Nashville and spend some time with my favorite sister, Kelly, and my favorite brother-in-law, Steven, got to grow closer with one of the most amazing girls I know- Rachel, spent quality time with my mom, had a much needed break from school and work and saw some of the most beautiful things ever!! God really showed me again how awesome He is and how much he has truly blessed my life.

Now that I'm home and reality is setting in once again, I can just feel that this is going to be a hard week. Over the past year I have gone through some really tough struggles. All the glory goes to God for getting me through some super tough stuff! One thing that is difficult for me right now is that a huge part of my life crashed and burned over a year ago. A year ago! I feel silly sometimes that it still can really bother me. I hate admitting to people that I am still having a difficult time, but I still am! Even tho it's been a while, it's still something I'm working on. There I said it!!! I'm still struggling!! Some days I still don't see what the point is anymore and I continue to question why things have gone the way that they have for me recently. Everyone tells me that God is going to honor this hard time in my life and that someday I will look back on this and be so thankful! I know I'm learning a lot and getting an awesome chance to grow closer with the Lord, but it's still super hard. I obviously have my good days and my bad days! This year has been a crazy roller coaster. I always have a hard time telling people how I truly feel. I can be extremely sad, but still put on the face of "everything is perfect"! That is the most draining thing ever! If you know me, you know that I enjoy staying up late and so normally I do. Sometimes, it's just way to hard to tho. By 8:00 my body is screaming to go to sleep. I'm scared to sleep sometimes though. Either I can't fall asleep because my mind won't shut off or I have awful dreams! I rarely ever sleep completely through the night and so then I just get frustrated. Then, since I don't really get a good night's sleep, I have the hardest time waking up in the morning. It's awful. I've never ever have felt this way before in my life. It's hard to explain and I wish these feeling upon no one. Sometimes my alarm will go off for 2 hours before I get up because I literally can't get up. I just have to pray and pray for the Lord to give me the strength to get up and face the day.

Today has just been one of those bad days. All I've wanted to do is go to sleep since the moment I woke up. I got like 7 hours of sleep tho and that's more than I normally get, so I should have been fine. All day I've been putting off everything that I need to do. I had 3 hours between school and work and had so much to do during that time and instead I laid in bed most of the time. I went to work and I just didn't feel myself. On my way home, there was a pretty bad storm, but it was so cool to see. It was just another reminder of how big the God we serve is. I drove home blasting worship music and felt the awesome presence of God right there with me. One of my biggest struggles is going to God for everything. That is the true desire of my heart, but it's a very tough thing to do. So, as I feel the comfort of the Lord, I'm still feeling lonely. I hate that feeling. I feel lonely all the time and I really don't have a reason to feel that way. I have an awesome family and great friends! What more do I want? I don't want to feel the loneliness because I'm not dating someone. I want God to fill that void for me. I don't even feel ready to be with someone and I know that is why God has been guarding me from that. When will I be ready? When is this guy going to come along and sweep me off my feet? These are things that I obviously battle with in my head over and over on a daily basis. I HATE THAT!!! It's really hard being a girl! Do guys feel this loneliness and longing for someone so bad too?? When I feel like this I just try and pray for my future husband if there is one that God has planned for me. It does make me feel a little better. But on this rainy night that I'll be sitting up late doing my homework I just wish I had him with me. I wish he was here now to push me to do the things that I haven't done yet and to bring a smile to my face. God help me, please!!!

I'm just going on and on right now! haha Sorry if you've actually read all of this, but thank you at the same time. I don't talk about this much and it feels good to just kind of let this out a little bit. If you're reading this and can relate in any way, I hope this makes you feel better in knowing that you're not alone. All I can say is pray and read your Bible. As I'm struggling and tears are filling up my eyes, that's the best advice I can give. He will comfort you!! God is a big, God, yet never too busy for you! Psalm 34:17 says "The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles." Those are such comforting words to read! He is rescuing all of us no matter what we're dealing with in our lives!

I am writing this with an extremely heavy heart and so much is on my mind. I wish there was an "on" and "off" switch for the mind! That would be so helpful to me!! haha So yeah, I don't even know if what I've written makes sense. I just know that the only thing that makes me feel better when I am down is running into the arms of our Lord and Savior. There is nothing in the world that compares to how that feels!!

How great is our God!!!!