Prayer response to devotional email 6/20/14

This week of the bible study I'm doing is about how Satan seeks to deceive and undermine God's love being real in our lives, and therefore our ability to live full lives. Yet again, completely relevant to exactly where I am. Today's devotional blog/email talked about the areas in which satan primarily attacks.

Abba Father,

Thank you again so much for making yourself and my need for you my very waking thought. Thank you for this hunger for healing that can only come from you and the awareness that time spent in your word and in prayer are the best ways to get that healing. 

Please help me to recognize when satan is shooting lies into my mind and my heart. Please help me to immediately see these lies for what they are, and cast them off. Please keep my eyes on you. I know the point of his lies is to turn my eyes on myself but I ask that you will keep them on you, so that I can see and experience in reality your love for me and live a full and abundant life. I'm only scratching the surface of what that mean, but I want more. Please protect me from mistaking these lies for truth and welcoming them in. I feel like that is one of the biggest struggles I have, and the source of my fear and insecurity.  I am desperate to change this, Father. Please make me stronger in you.

Please also enable me to protect my time with you in your word each morning. I know satan will try to interfere, tell me I don't have time, or that it's boring, but I know that your word is my best weapon against his lies, and I need it. Please help me to absorb more of its truth by the day and use this sword against him when he comes to poison my thoughts. Please feed my hunger for you and keep me hungry for your word, show me it's power and effectiveness daily, so that satan can never deceive me into thinking otherwise. 

Please strengthen my prayer life, and not let satan's lies about my worthiness or attempts at distraction keep me from it. Please protect me from ever feeling silly about calling out to you. Thank you for the way you bestow peace on me through the ability to talk with you. Father, I want to listen more for you when I pray, but I don't always know how, so I ask that you will guide me and prompt me. 

Thank you so much for this bible study, for the women who are writing it, and for the changes you are already making in my heart because of it. Please keep showing me how much I am loved.

Pregnancy tests and desperate prayers

"So I took a pregnancy test at like 4:30 this morning and at the time it looked negative, but then when I checked just now there was a plus sign. So I dunno if that's positive or an evaporation line (which I've heard of but never had), so an addition to my prayer request is that when I test again in a few days it's a very clear positive. And that I don't go crazy in the meantime, because I'm very confused. "

That's the message I sent to a few of my friends who I consider my support system right now. I'm totally exhausted mentally, emotionally, and  physically, the last due to not having had a good night's sleep in a month. Or at least not more than one in a row. The past 4.5 (especially the past 12 days) weeks have been some of the most difficult of my life, yet  the past 2.5 have been some of the most spiritually rewarding. This bible study I'm doing has been on point with what I'm facing every single day, and through it and being brave enough to ask for prayer and admit my brokenness and desperation for God's love, peace, and freedom from fear, I really feel I'm beginning to make progress. 

I was trying to be low key about taking the pregnancy test this morning. I did not plan on waking up with a desperate need to use the bathroom at 4:28 AM. When I took the test, and stared at it for a minute waiting for any sign of a line, I didn't really feel much. I left it on the counter, hoping maybe Scott would see it and I wouldn't have to bring it up. But here's the other thing-today is the day my period is "expected" but because of my irregular cycles, a negative test today doesn't neccesarily mean I'm not pregnant. I've never found out I was pregnant at four weeks-partly because I've only tested at four weeks a couple times. All three times I've found out at six weeks. I really do believe God's timing is best, and I'm beginning to find some peace in that, though it's still a struggle. Today is just a perfect storm of exhaustion, coupled with a very confusing test result. I don't want to have false hope, but I don't want to be negative nelly either. 

One thing that clicked with me best from yesterday's devotional message was the idea of recognizing when things are too big for you and actively handing them over to God. This is something that I find I have to do repeatedly with the same issues because I tend to try to take them back. Over and over. 

I find myself today in a place of desperation. Not for a baby, though my heart aches for that gift in ways I cannot express, my desperation is for peace, freedom from fear (because at times I feel so weighed down by it's chains), a sense of God's presence, open eyes and heart to experience in reality His love. I want to live joyfully today! I know that a life of "I'll be happy when..." Is no life at all, I learned that years ago. I also know that joy is beyond our circumstances and comes from the knowledge and understanding of God's love in our lives. I'm hungry for all of this, and I'm at a point of such deep need. I need his comfort, healing, presence, strength, I, like a toddler, need to be caught up in the arms of my Father to feel safe, loved, protected, and comforted. 

Abba, 

you know all that is on my heart, and all my weaknesses and struggles. You love me in my imperfection and you bless me with your people to show me love on this earth. I praise and thank you for Carol, Adria, Faith, Rebekah, Cindy, Ann, Jody, Julayne, Laura, Callie, Jewell, Chip, and all the others that you have loving on and praying for me. Thank you for Scott and his patience and strength to walk this journey beside me as a partner. Thank you for all the blessings wrapped up in Lexi. Thank you for the reminder of your love and faithfulness that her very life is. Thank you for how healthy, strong, and happy she is. Thank you for her cuddles and her laughter. Please guide me in parenting her with love and wisdom. Thank you for providing all our physical needs and for Scott's job.  Father, you know my needs.  I do ask that you will give us a healthy strong baby growing inside me, even now. I ask that the next pregnancy test I take will be a clear positive that we can celebrate! If this isn't the month, I ask that you will give me hope to keep going on this journey and joy in trusting in your timing. You know the challenges I'm facing mentally and emotionally and you have all the power to solve them. When my mind and heart become burdened and even before the enemy uses my weakness to attack, I ask that you help me to take those things to you and give me peace and joy that you are taking care of them in ways beyond my dreams. Please bless me with a sense of your presence and love wrapped around me like a blanket, protecting me and giving me security and peace. You are my hope and the only source of peace. I need you. 

Amen

Reflection and prayer response to today's devotional email

"If we allow a broken relationship to consume us, to take up too much brain space, it will create anxiety and despair. However, if we give it to God by faith, and seek to leave the consequences of our difficulties in His hand, then we are able to move forward, to cultivate hope, to learn the pathway of His love. When we meet Him at the cross and allow Him to take our broken hopes, we can leave with peace, knowing that He knows us and still loves us and has healed once and for all, the places of our own failures. Only as we live in this way, can we experience His love–when we forgive ourselves and when we accept His amazing accomplishment and victory in our lives.

It is my prayer this week that you will learn to live into the light of His promised love, that you will give your burdens into His capable hands and that you will accept your Father’s desire to love you and carry you through this world until you see Him face to face.

May you live free from burdens and worries to day, and rest in His amazing love."

~Sally Clarkson

That is how my devotional email from the You Are Loved bible study ended today, and it just resonated so deeply. This week's topic is about how satan wants to devour us and keep us from experiencing God's love for us, and I'll admit that relationships are one way I really see this in my own life. I take on far more than is mine and I call myself a failure when things aren't harmonious. Yet again this bible study it touching me right where I am and it's gotta be God's hand on my life that I am in exactly the right place at the precise time. 

Abba Father,

You know my scars, my bruises, my disappointments and separations from people. You know how I struggle with feeling like a failure, but you are also compassionate and know that I am weak and unable to fix everything on my own. Please help me to see myself through your compassionate eyes and take comfort in your love for me when I feel discouraged. Please give me freedom in knowing that all my mistakes and shortcomings are covered by the cross. Please write this truth on my heart, because it seems like it's something I know in my head but I'm not finding true freedom, peace, and joy in in my life. Please protect me from the attacks of the enemy who comes to steal my joy and keep me from experiencing your peace and love. I hate how often He is successful and I need you to build such a wall of truth around my heart that his arrows just bounce right off. 

Father, in this very moment I am struggling mightily with my emotions. I feel weak and afraid, and the lies that I struggle to confront and cast off are wrapping tentacles around my heart. Please help me cast them off and replace them with your truth. Please give me the strength and the heart to love people for your glory. Please heal my brokenness and give me joy and peace in you and what you are doing in my life. Father, I have moments when I feel so strong and have a sense of your presence with me and they are becoming days rather than moments, and I thank you so much for that. Please protect my heart and mind so that the enemy's arrows can't pierce through at a moment's notice and destroy the peace and joy and strength that you are providing. 

Please help me counter the enemy's attacks by keeping the eyes of my heart open to ways that you show me your presence and your love in reality each day. Please keep my eyes focused on these things and help me to embrace and take comfort in your love, joy, and peace. Please keep the reality of your love my reality and help me to recognize everything else as lies and shake it off.

Please give me the courage to live joyfully. Please help me not to try to find peace in my circumstances but to cry out to you for it, for my hope is only in you. 

When others are mistreating me or stirring up strife, please grant me an abundant measure of your love to pour out on them in response. Please keep me from responding unlovingly, and help me to hand the situation over to you to handle in your time instead of  carrying the burden myself and making it an idol. Please help me to recognize when I am carrying something and help me to bring it to you, as many times as I need to, until I stop trying to take it back.  

Father, please comfort me in your love. My heart aches and I know there is nothing in this world to heal it or calm my fears, but You are more than able. Please cast out my fears with your love and wrap me in your peace, holding me close to you. I need you, so much. Thank you for always being here with me and loving me. Please open my eyes and heart to see, experience, and truly live in your love. 

This song just came into my head:

Oh Lord, You're beautiful
Your face is all I see
For when Your eyes are on this child
Your grace abounds to me

Oh Lord, please light the fire
That once burned bright and clear
Replace the lamp of my first love
That burns with holy fear

I want to take Your Word and shine it all around
But first help me just to live it, Lord
And when I'm doing well, help me to never seek a crown
For my reward is giving glory to You

Prayer reflection on Chapter 2 (You Are Loved)

Father, 

So often on this path of life when there are dark or shadowy times, my heart is filled with fear and I struggle to look to you for light and hope and direction. Please help me to know your heart better daily as I walk this path, so that I can better know your love for me and understand your will for my life. Father, for whatever reason I really struggle to translate your goodwill toward me from head knowledge to heart knowledge in the shadowy times. Please forgive me for letting the shadows overcome the light of all the ways you show your love for me every day. I ask with my whole heart that you reverse this trend in my life, that your love would shine so bright in my life before my eyes that the enemy's lies would not be able to get to me. Please replace the darkness of fear with the light of your loving desire to guide and bless me at each step along the way. I don't know why fear is such a struggle in my life, Father but I'm crying out to you to please deliver me from it. I know that you can. Oh Abba father please rid me of the fear of my heart so I can rest in your love as I walk this path of life. Please keep my eyes and heart focused on your character and how you display your love for me. Please give me confidence and security and peace in who you are and who I am to you. Please deliver me from fear. 

Please write on my heart the truth of Jeremiah 24:6-7 where you promise to watch over me for my good, build me up and not tear me down, plant me and not uproot me. Please Give me a heart to know you, that you are The Lord. I am yours, and you are my God, and keep me always close to you with all my heart. I need you, Father, to hold me close to you, especially in these times that feel so dark. Please give me peace and rest and joy in you. Please bring my heart so close to you that I understand deeply and experience in reality your deep love and commitment to me. 

Please help me to consistently be able to make time to spend with you, in your word, in prayer, in stillness listening, in your creation, and please help me come to you like a child-no agenda, just love. 

Father, even as I pray now, the fear is creeping in. I'm struggling to trust you to guide and order my life, and I know how foolish that is. Forgive me for trying to keep control and protect myself. Please deliver me from this fear. I need you, Abva. I can't get free on my own. I need you. Please make the ways you show your love, especially to me personally explode with light and cast out the lies the enemy tries to plant. Help me to answer His lies with abundant truth of your love. Thank you for this hunger I have for you. Please don't let it wane when times are easier, please keep me always hungry to know you more. Forgive me for the times I haven't made knowing you a priority. 

Walking the path

So, we all know that the core of my struggle is fear. We know that I'm particularly attacking that and asking for deliverance in my life in that area. This week the topic in my bible study is knowing God in order to better experience his love through knowing His will in our lives. Great concept, but I was feeling a bit discouraged that it might  not match perfectly with what I'm facing right now, and I am so so hungry for comfort and to be spoken to by God. Because I am hungry, I decided to continue to dive in and dig deep if I needed to in order to apply whatever God has for me to learn. Well, He has amazed me yet again, right when I needed it. Here is an excerpt from today's devotional blog post:

 "Learning to know the heart of God as we walk our path is the key to experiencing His love more consistently, and learning to understand His will for our lives. We have to believe in His good will toward us to be able to experience His ever-present love. We must replace the darkness of fears or bitterness with the light of His loving desire to guide and bless us at each step along the way. We can only rest in His love when we have rid ourselves from the fear of our heart as we walk the path of our life with Him. His love will lead us home. His goodwill and promise to be with us, will give us security."

As I read this, I literally had to set down my drink and pulled the iPad into my lap. This is for *me*!!!!!!! I need this! Yes!!!! This is what I struggle with the most, starting from believing in His good will towards us. Sometimes I have a really hard seeing the light and am sucked into the shadows, and so my head knowledge of His goodness and my heart knowledge of the same don't connect. I know that it's not enough to believe in his goodness when it's easy, but even more important to believe when it's not, because that makes the payoff all the sweeter. So I will pray these things for myself, and I'd love it so much if you'd pray them for me too.

Calling out the lies for what they are

This is what is true:

-I am incredibly blessed with a wonderful husband and daughter, all my physical needs met, a church family and some friends who live further away who give me incredible support. My life as it is is good.

-there is no reason to think we are not going to have more children, except my weird negative superstitions and believing lies, and all the reason to believe we will from a tangible medical perspective. I got pregnant with Lexi very quickly using Clomid, I am far healthier now than I was even then, and I did get pregnant relatively quickly last winter with no help. So I have all the reasons in the world to expect good things. 

Maybe if I exposed the lies as such it would help me. When I was struggling with anxiety when I was pregnant with Lexi, one of our dearest friends said this: 

"Stop pulling up a chair to the devil and listening to his bullshit."

Now, that's in context of a much larger email, and not as harsh as it sounds, especially considering the source is someone who loves me, is in the foxhole with me, and is the closest thing I've ever had to a true big brother. 

And, he's absolutely right. I think that's probably my biggest struggle emotionally and spiritually. I hear all the lies, and I start to believe them and dwell on them as truth instead of walking away or slamming the door. Some of these lies are the same lies I was struggling with two years ago when i got that email. 

Lies:

-good things don't happen to you. LIE-Lexi. Boom. Scott. Boom. Trip to the Philippines when my life was falling apart.   Boom. Three life-defining good things. 

-"when you see someone else being blessed in the way you are praying for for yourself, it won't happen for you."---now, I know where this comes from, and I wrote about it the other day. This is a really tough one for me, especially in the area of having children. I know it's a LIE, because, again, Lexi. It's a hard one still, because of September baby, and because I haven't yet been strong enough to call it out as a lie whenever it creeps in. 

-"god won't give you another child unless you earn it"- it's hard to find words to explain this one, but it's a biggie. See, I'm constantly scrambling to figure out what I'm doing so wrong that's coming between me and another baby, and feeling tremendous pressure to do everything right. This is wrong on so many levels and that's why maybe it's the hardest to conquer right now. This is a LIE because:

       -we can't earn blessings or bargain with God. That's just not how it works. His blessings are free gifts, like His love. We can seek Him diligently and ask for freedom from the things that are keeping us from abundant life in Him, but there's no earning anything, particularly a baby.

      -it's not that I don't deserve blessing(I never could, so it's moot) it's that He has timing in mind that is absolutely right for my good and His glory. This isn't a punishment, it's a blessing. I fully believe that Lexi came to us at exactly the right time, and I certainly wasn't perfect then either! I think part of my struggle with trusting in His plan and his timing comes from a truth that the enemy twists in my mind. 

-"this side of heaven, we aren't promised anything concretely. " this is absolutely true, and for me it can be a very hope sapping and depressing thought. The answer is that we are to live each day pursuing God and His will in our lives, and finding Joy in what He has given us. And that's fantastic-it's something I am praying to be able to do better all the time! But at the same time, I am on the verge of tears right now because the idea of not having any more babies biologically as a possibility in God's plan is an exponential version of heartbreaking for me. I know that His plan is perfect, and if that were His plan, than it would be the best thing for me, but then why do I have this deep heart wrenching desire for it? Again, I have no reason at all to think that more babies are not part of God's plan, and many reasons to think they are, but the frailty of my mind takes "you aren't promised anything" and turns it into "you get nothing." Which is far from the truth.  I'm a mess, believe me, I know. 

At least one friend has brought up that it was "when I stopped stressing" I got pregnant with Lexi, as a way of trying to convince me to care less and therefore struggle less with this-and  I do appreciate it. Weelllll that's not exactly the case though. In October 2011 we discovered our first cycle of clomid had not resulted in ovulation. my fitness journey was going great at that point, and I started to feel like I wanted to see that through and maybe I didn't want a baby right now after all, but at the same time I felt like I didn't have time not to keep trying. So I took the clomid, we did the baby dance on the prescribed schedule, and got Lexi. That's what happened. That was going on three years ago, and I've now had that baby and reached and surpassed my fitness goals, in addition to Lexi, which is awesome. I know that biologically my liklihood of getting and staying pregnant is better if I can chill out and not obsess over it, and believe it or not I'm really trying to just focus on what each day has in it and enjoy that, but life is not helping me out in that area. Every time I start to feel content and patient, something pops up and either brings my hearts desire to the forefront by way of making me think I am pregnant or finding out someone else is, triggering my fear. 

So I pray. And pray and pray. I feel like I'll never get a break enough for my body to get a fair chance at a healthy pregnancy, but God is bigger than my body, and this is all about His plan. 

So, that's my heart dump for today. Thanks for your prayers. 

Working through things, praying off the lies

Today during my devotional time and after, I've been trying to identify the lies that are contributing to my heartache and root them out. 

One of the biggest is that I don't "deserve" more children, and that's why I don't have them.  It's a lie because none of us deserve children and God gives them to far less "deserving" people than me! The lie that my friends have 3, 4, 5 children in their twenties because they are more deserving is something I need to get out of my head. The truth is that God has a different plan for each of us, and there is nothing better and more fulfilling than that! So, with His help, that's one truth I hope to carve into a space a lie once occupied. I've believed that lie a long long time though. 

I'm emotionally and physically exhausted from this struggle, but I'm so thankful I was able to have excellent devo time as well as a great workout this morning. I'm hoping to get a little more upper body work in during naptime. I know that the emotional strain of this time is affecting me physically, and I'm doing what I can to reverse that. I don't know how I'm supposed to relax enough for my body to let me get pregnant when I'm fighting this battle. But I hope that if I run back to God every time I feel the fear swell, He will bless me despite my humanity. 

My prayer for this part of the journey

Oh, Abba, 

Please grant me joy and peace on this journey. Return to me the magic and contentment that filled my days not long ago. Please give me patience and peace in your timing, keep me from comparison and the jealousy that saps my joy. Please deliver me from fear, making my trust in your perfect love so rock solid that there just isn't any room for it. Abba, I cry to you that even now you'd be making a strong healthy baby inside me. Please, Abba, I know I can never earn or deserve your blessings, but I'm asking all of this from you. Thank you for knowing all of me and loving and forgiving me. 

Psalm 86:15

So, the scripture reading for Friday, which I was unable to do until today was psalm 86:15. It's a fantastic and comforting verse, but I realized there was one part in particular that is extremely crucial to my struggle. 

The words "abounding in love and faithfulness" jump out to me. I've shared before that I have a complex that if someone else, particularly someone close to me, is being blessed in a certain area, that I won't be, at least not anytime soon. Now, maybe that came from the years I waited for Lexi and losing a child in tandem with a sister in law giving birth to a healthy one on my due date, but the fact that that same SIL and I both had healthy babies a month apart in 2012 should have fixed that, right? I guess the lie has been too deeply ingrained in my thick skull. Then January happened, a seemingly self-fulfilling prophecy. And now, again I find myself devastated by someone I love's blessing. This is the worst by far, and while this is in large part due to things that have been said over the years and comparisons and jealousies, and hurts, I have GOT to find a way to not be destroyed. I have to find a way to believe that God is *abounding* in love and faithfulness, which means there is more than enough to go around. I know in my head this is true, but I need Him to write it on my heart. I need Him to give me joy and hope and excitement for what lies ahead, because right now I am very low on all of those. The fear and pain right now are so great that I'm having trouble seeing anything else. I need Him. I need Him. I need Him. 

Poor in spirit, indeed

So, last week, our church started a sermon series on the Beatitudes(Matthew 5:3-12) with a teaching on v3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". The pastor talked a lot about being "at the end of your rope. Yes, I could relate to that. The past 7 months have been a lot of that. He also talked about crying out for help. So Scott and I really took that to heart, and even more often than usual began praying together, crying out that we are poor in spirit and need His help. Then Monday, I started a new bible study called "you are loved", which is speaking exactly to my heart through God's word and the authors of the bible study. I have been praying hard the past few weeks for healing in a certain relationship also, and was feeling burdened by it. I think my quiet times Monday through Thursday were some of the most powerful and uplifting I'd ever had. Then, Thursday afternoon, the person I'd been burdened about reconciling with contacted me to make up! I was ecstatic! I felt so blessed by God with this healing, I felt a tremendous weight lifted. Then, not long after, this person called me with some news. News that on it's face is good news, and something I should be excited about, but in fact devastated me. And God was with me, because during the whole conversation I was able to be cheerful and listen, but the second I hung up, I began to discinigrate. What I am going through personally is not the fault of this person, and because this is someone I love, I'm going to fight not to punish them for my own pain. But I honestly do not know how to cope, let alone be what they want/need me to he. I was broken down to begin with, and this has taken me to rock bottom. I have asked many close to me to pray, and I'm continuing to study God's word and pray, and cry out to Him. I'm truly at the end of my rope though, and finding it very hard to find hope that this dark time is ending anytime soon. I know God's ways are not our ways, and I am fighting to believe His timing and His plan are best, but I'm having trouble seeing love in this situation, where I am fighting to trust Him to fulfill my heart's desire, to find joy in each day, to not give up hope, to keep trying in the face of disappointment, and now, when I had barely started to get my feet under me again, I feel knocked down harder than ever by the blessing that I'm crying out for being given to someone in such close proximity to me that it feels like rubbing it in my face. What is He trying to tell me? I am so shattered and hurt and broken, I barely know how to go on. I'm turning back to Him and his word and begging him for comfort. Please please pray for me. Please pray that I will find strength and comfort and renewed faith in the waiting time, and that the waiting time would be almost over. Oh, please let it be almost over.