Before starting I would like to apologize for the horrible run-on sentences and poor grammar in the last couple posts. I just got a little caught up and went to town. Also, in the spirit of November and giving thanks, I would like to thank everyone for reading - I'm less than 50 views away from hitting 1,000 which has been a personal goal. The odds are that I've touched at least one life out of a thousand and touching one life makes every single blog worth it to me. :) Thank you for reading!
Where were we? Ah, yes. Getting frustrated and angry. As previously discussed I like to be in charge of my life and know what is going on, where I'm going, and how I am going to get there. As counseling progressed and we started uncovering some issues, I gradually started noticing that I was stalking around campus being very angry without really knowing why. I brought this up to Gary (the counselor) and expressed that I was "angry about everything."
What I figured out was that I was angry about two specific areas. The first was that I was still constantly walking around being angry at the darned ex-boyfriend and because I didn't know how to get rid of that (Lord knows I wanted to - that was two years ago!) it was driving me in angry, vindictive circles. The second was that I was angry about my job and angry about not knowing what I was doing with my life (future-career-wise).
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| (Not me, but how I felt. :)) |
"Anger is a secondary emotion. If you're angry, you are probably feeling fearful, hurt or frustrated but it is coming out as anger."
Gary, that made so much sense! Immediately I could re-frame what I was feeling in a way that made it easier to figure out what was going on.
"I'm angry at ________________ because I'm constantly scared that every man I meet will be like he was and eventually not want me or not want me for my heart but for my body. I'm hurt by __________ because I felt like I wasn't valuable because of the way he treated me and I'm frustrated because I want to be over this whole mess and stop having to deal with it every day!"
That made so much more sense to me than - "I'm so mad at ______________!"
Anywho that was the bridge that put me on the road to forgiveness - step one for me was figuring out more specifics about why I was angry. We also had to talk a lot about false guilt - I false guilt myself all the time. I'm also really hard on myself. I can extend grace to other people but don't allow myself any and that makes me constantly feel guilty. So I had to start recognizing negative thought patterns (ANTS - Automatic Negative ThoughtS) when I thought about _________ and how that affected my life and stop blaming myself for things that are in the past and out of my control and also aren't even true.
At this same time God was pushing me to get involved more at Berean, where I've attended the college-aged service pretty much since second semester of my freshman year. For a social butterfly like myself it made absolutely no sense that I had yet to make friends within the church. So I went by myself the second week of Real Time (the college group weekly Bible study) which was really scary because I knew no one. God put me in the perfect small group. I was deathly afraid I was going to wind up in a group of freshman giggly girls when all I craved were women my own age with similar struggles that I could identify with. And God gave me that in Abby's small group.
To tie that in with the third devotional: "Personal."
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
Psalm 139:1
"God knows your thoughts, when you sit, when you rise and when you lie down. God knows you through and through, in and out, and loves you in more ways than you can ever know. God wants you to believe that he loves you! And though he doesn't put conditions on his love, he does ask that you respond to his love. Talk to him. Trust him for what you need. Believe that you are his unique and beloved creation. Let him search you and know you. God loves you with the strongest love imaginable - a love worth dying for." - devotional
That God knows me so intimately that he could match me so perfectly with the girls he put in my group and had lined me up with the exact person I needed at the exact right time was more romantic and meaningful to me than if He had instantly "cured" all my problems when I complained about them. I don't think in the Bible it ever says God will "fix" all my problems. But, like a husband, He promises to provide for my needs. God did that in such a masterful and beautiful way throughout this whole painful situation for me. Sometimes I still have to sit and be in awe at the way God put so many little pieces together in such a perfect and wonderful picture. That He never once left my side and always provided for me gave me such a feeling of being loved, valued, and being secure that I haven't felt the same about my relationship with God since.
During a period where I didn't even feel like I knew myself, God knew me so closely and intimately that He knew everything I needed. It still blows my mind. Well, if you've stuck with me through these last three, the next one is going to be about forgiveness and REACH retreat (where my background picture is from!) and the neat things that happened there. We are getting close to present day again!
But before I go, the word that went with this devotional is one that I think speaks to the core of both men and women. It's a word that we all crave. The word to take with you is: known.
You are known.
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