Making changes

Apparently, some stuff I needed to get through needed to be got through.

Now.

And how God seems to do lately in how He and I relate, He found a way to provide me what I needed, which was a book that really helped me.

I'd like to share with you some of the things God has been doing lately around here:

First off, He's helping me to not isolate myself from people.  He used a guy from church to call me out on this one.  I got reminded that I needed to hang out AFTER church and socialize with my church family.  I'd been kind of convicted earlier than when that happened, but it's a change I really needed to make.

I can't isolate myself.  It was never my intention to do so.  Sometimes, though, I think there are times when even a Christian has to have some alone time to sort through stuff.  I've been in that season for a minute, but we're not staying there and I haven't been for about a month.  On Saturday, I got to meet some of my neighbors before going to the football game at Weber State. 

In two Sundays, I accepted an invitation to lunch with some friends of friends I know.  It's an older group, but fellowship is fellowship.

He's slowly restoring things to better shape.  Since the ex moved in, and on the other side of the bed bug plague, I have new furniture.  My son gave me a lovely dining room set, so I have absolutely more than I need.  The new furniture is mine, and while I'd hoped for different circumstances, God kinda reminded me tonight when I was walking the dog that for the first time in my adult life furniture wasn't based on someone else's tastes, done to make someone else happy, or chosen based on budget.  It reflects my tastes and it goes along with the construction of the house.  The blue bedroom was nice, but it wasn't me.  It was me trying to be fancy.  Maybe that's why I only got to enjoy one night of it before the bed bug catastrophe became evident.

None of the above things are bad by themselves, but I think God was telling me that the point was that He wanted me to enjoy the things He's allowed me to have instead of thinking about what I was hoping to come to pass that didn't at that moment.

I mentioned walking the dog.  Another of the things I'm kind of being impressed upon is the need for self-care.  I take OK care of myself, but in the last six months or so, I've kind of not done the best job of that.  I used to cook for myself.  I got out of the habit.  I became aware of the need to do this sometime last week, and for the first time in about eight years, I took a lunch to work.  I'm doing good with this.  I didn't make something for leftovers to take today, but I made myself a meal last night.  I had turkey steaks cooked in my air fryer, mashed potatoes, and corn.  Tonight I made Jaegersnitzel, parsley potatoes, and green beans.

I also took the dog for a walk.  He was happy about it and so was I.  This weekend, I will get a haircut.  It's getting too long again, and I need to take better care of that.  I know I'm just average looking, but I can try to look the best I can with what I have to work with. 

I don't say that because of low self esteem.  I just look in the mirror and recognize I'm the way God made me.  I don't find my value in how I appear to others, but in how God sees me.  It's not vanity to take care of one's self, I don't think.  I do think it's just another way the Lord is reminding me that I'm one of His and that's where I find my worth.  He shows all of us what He thinks of us at the foot of the cross. To Jesus, I was worth dying for.  So are you.  My self-worth comes from that act of self-sacrifice on His part for me.

I hope you'll take a minute and let that one sink in.

As part of that realization that I need to better care for myself, I got reminded that I can't just try to cope with pain and disappointments, resentment, rejection, and the bevy of other things that happen around here on a daily basis with food.  Jesus didn't tell me to get rid of the pain in a plate of nachos.  He said something about giving my burdens to Him, and to let Him help me carry them.  I've kinda been eating unhealthy for a few months.  My pants are reminding me I need to make a change there, so that's why I'm taking a lunch and making meals for myself again.

And walking the dog.

Stuff has been a big thing lately, but not in the sense that I'm building idols for myself.  Big, comfy bed 2.0 is a blessing.  So is having a dresser.  I actually have two dressers;  one bought in the hope that it will be used someday by someone with long eyelashes.  Since May, I have new flooring in every bedroom upstairs.  All of the HVAC works.  All the appliances are new, as is a disposal and water heater.  The water heater was under warranty when it gave up, and replacing it with a newer model with a new warranty only cost me $200.

I had to repair some plumbing that was damaged during removal.  I had help getting it on the cart at the store with the aid of a stranger and my favorite 7 year old.  My neighbor helped me unload it out of the truck. 

And while all those things are new and shiny and make life very comfortable here at the house, I find myself dreading coming home because I'm lonely. 

I'm understanding that right now it's necessary and during this time of loneliness, God is giving me things to work on and things to do.  There has been plenty to do.  There is still plenty to do, and I think that's just the dealio with being a homeowner.  I got down for a minute because everything happened at once and it took more of a toll than I thought.

I remember at one point God telling me through the Spirit, "let the pain do it's job."

I don't do pain well and the book I mentioned explained a lot of why that is to me.  So I left that pain today at the cross and I feel like I lost about 50 pounds doing it.  I'm not perfect.  I'm not supposed to be and I don't need to feel ashamed that I am human and very much a work in progress.  That being said, when I have shortcomings, when things don't go my way, when I'm angry, tired, frustrated, or lonely and hurt, I have choices I need to make.

And one of them I need to make more consistently is to actually let the pain do it's job.  I mentioned the theme of the book about the lions was that you need to run into the roar for your best chance of coming out of it alive.  The other book I just read talked about the same principle just not using lions.  When we face it, whatever the it happens to be, instead of trying to avoid it, the it loses its power over us.

I get the message.

I don't carry a lot of stuff around, but I couldn't see why I was trying to re-write my own history, instead of being curious about why some of the things happened the way they did in my life. Reading about some of the whys people do what they do kind of broke some chains I didn't even realize I still had. 

By no means am I where I need to be with some stuff that I need to get through, but I'm about 90% there.  Mostly because God started working on me to work on these things before I got the book which explained what He was up to.

I let the pain do it's job, and then when the pain had done it's job, God provided a resource that explained why the pain needed to do it's job and how to move forward from here.  Self-care was a big part of it.  Not trying to escape things is another, and changing the way I think about pain as something that needs to be avoided at all costs is a big part of it.

Sometimes pain is the only way we're going to grow.

So, those might not seem like huge things going on, but to me they are.  I'm a better person for having experienced what I have and I'm learning that dealing with stuff instead of coping with stuff is better.  And the end result, I think, is that I'm starting to grow closer to the Lord and understanding more of how God's process for making me more like Jesus is working. 

So I'm positive about the changes and that they're going to be for the best.