For over two months now my doctor has been cutting back my old medicine of 17 years and putting me on a new one. The old one just had too many side effects and it was taking more and more to keep the voices at bay. My teeth are warn through the enamel on the bottom from the sawing motion of my lower jaw which we hope is a temporary side effect from the old med we hope will go away when stopped. It can be permanent.
What this has meant is the overlapping of the medicines, the old and the new. I have been severely sedated especially in the mornings. After taking the med at bed time I was having about a 13 hour sleep and then drugged until they wore off during the afternoon, 16 to 18 hrs later.
I went on the internet today and realized the meds can be taken at two times during the day instead of just once at bed time. So I pray and ask you to pray this helps. I only lack one cut back of the old medicine and should be doing better.
The other day I had sat down with the Lord and made my little to do list for the day. I had gotten through with it and it was about noon. I had realized that I would become fearful or anxious when I didn't know what to do next. I stopped this day and prayed. Lord I know my value and worth does not depend on what I do. That I am very valuable to you because of your love, Jesus love and death on the cross for me. But at that moment I felt very vulnerable, insecure, fragile. I felt lost. I was not knowing who I was. I was searching for some kind of significance or purpose. I said whether I do another thing today I am valuable in you. I can just sit here and enjoy you and be just as valuable as if I had accomplished something great. I ended up having a very good day.
I read a book many years ago, Search for Significance. I don't remember a lot of specifics about the book. Just that it made a tremendous impact in my life. Since then I have read and studied the implications of knowing who you are in Christ. The importance of knowing Gods love for you in sending His Son and the masterful value of the plan of redemption for us Gods child. Our inheritance and what it means to us that Christ died for us.
We search for value and worth throughout our day in many ways. We feel valuable if we have children that have pain free successful lives. If we are married or have happy marriages. If we are successful in our work. If we have possessions, clean houses, look pretty or handsome. If we are intelligent or know our theology or have a successful ministry. If we are good at our hobbies and have lots of them. If we have life all together, then we feel like we can fix others and disciple them and we will feel worthy when we get them to where we want them, through us. We are just trying to fix ourselves. We are trying to find life ourselves.
But to know that my value is in Christ and His death for me. That I am loved, cherished and adored. That nothing I can do can make Him love me any less or make Him love me any more. To know that He even sees my failures and sins as opportunity for Him to be glorified in and through me. That I might could speak more into someones life by a humble heart of asking forgiveness rather than getting it right. That to forgive others for the wrong they have done us because nothing they can do to us is half as bad as that day on Calvary where I shamed, scorned, horrified, and humiliated Christ plus He suffered all my sin, shame, suffering and pain on that day for me. How can I not ask for forgiveness if He has so graciously and mercifully forgiven me? How can I not forgive others after what I did to Jesus?
When Christ was crucified on that cross He said it is finished. That means that when the Father looks at me He sees me already like Jesus. He sees Jesus perfect record and sacrifice. He sees all my sins forgiven as far as from the east is to the west, past, present and future my sins are forgiven. I am loved. I believe not only that but that the Father chooses to forget my sins because they are paid for in full. It is a debt I owe that Jesus has marked paid in full. So I can have hope. Hope for life and change in me and others. No, there is not promises for a pain free life but He does promise none of it is wasted. He promises to make me like His Son and give me an abundant life.
So I can live freely now. I can smile on tomorrow and laugh throughout my day.
Not needing to succeed or accomplish or have acceptance or love from others to meet my needs but to give freely. To have compassion for others. To carry their burdens but not feel responsible for their change but give them truth and love. You cannot have love without truth or truth without love. You must have both. But the big thing is we must have faith. Faith that God is enough. This is a growing, continuing faith. We will not fully know it this side of heaven for God to completely meet our needs. But this is one reason I am doing Lent. Or why Jesus is doing it for me. I am giving up, through grace, to cut out my need for something and looking to Him to meet that need. We can do this through the physical and it actually affects us Spiritual. I am finding out how being weak physically does effect us Spiritual because we rely on our own strength, even physical to cope instead of relying and depending on Him. We are body, mind, soul and Spirit. I don't understand it all but I know one part effects all other parts. When we are sick in body and mind it affects our thinking and our hearts. It affects us Spiritually. This is why the Saints and Monks of old use to deprive their bodies to grow Spiritually. We are to rely on Christ in it all. But we have a weak faith but Jesus had a strong faith for us. It is His faith we look to. It is to Him. We come with empty hands. The question is what are we holding on to? Many things I want to suggest. He is prying our hands open and releasing them one by one and filling them with the Jesus inside us. With faith.
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