A New Year

This morning I sat down at my desk and cautiously opened up my blog dashboard…just waiting for an urgent popup to jump out at me asking who in the world was accessing my blog.  Thankfully that didn’t happen and with a few minutes of taking care of updates and familiarizing myself with my dashboard, I was ready to push “New Post” once again.

Beside me,  on my desk, is a small pile of bits and pieces of paper with thoughts jotted down.  Things that were tumbling around in my brain and I grabbed whatever scrap of paper that was available and started writing.  Today I hope to type these thoughts out and I hope and pray they make sense and are a help to someone.

As I’ve mentioned before, the whole purpose of starting this blog was to encourage others in the Lord and to help you see sweet things in life, even when they are pretty hard to find.

God has been doing so much in my life and I especially see His great work in the past several months.

As I’ve mentioned before (I feel like I need to remind you, since it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything. sigh), the affects of my mom’s sudden death did quite a number on me.  It seemed to scramble my brain and do a number on my nervous system (various affects of PTSD).  Because of all this, it has been difficult to read about or try to figure out or even describe what in the world was going on inside of me.

A year or so ago, one of my kids met a young Dr. that specialized in PTSD and he came to our house and we sat at the table and chatted about PTSD for over an hour.  (Ok…to say we “chatted” about it makes it sound like it was a casual, lighthearted talk.  It wasn’t.  I cried…sobbed through a lot of it and after we were done I felt physically and emotionally exhausted.)  What he said made more sense to me than anything else I’ve heard or tried to read about PTSD.  It definitely helped, yet there were still so many unanswered questions.  I found a little scrap of paper that I had written, “I don’t want PTSD to define me; I just want to be able to define – understand – it.”

I have prayed.  I have begged God for answers; for help.  And though He has given me strength for each day, I didn’t have the answers I was looking for.

Over time (I can’t believe it’s been over 5 years already!), I have notice that I get a little better…slowly but surely.  I can’t explain what is different, its just better.  Like another “layer of  yuck” has fallen off.  I haven’t done anything different.  I went to bed every night and got up every morning.  I was still reading my Bible and crying out to God to help me.  A lot of days now it seems the very thick cloud that had been a part of most of my days has been lifted – from my mind, my emotions, my feelings, my spirit.

I’ve been told to “let go of the past” (i.e. get over it, Mitzi), but honestly it just wouldn’t let go of me.  I have tried my very hardest to not let it control how I was towards people or to react in the flesh.  I can’t say I’ve scored 100% every time, but with God’s help, I haven’t failed every time either.  I found these words from Holley Gerth’s book “You’re Already Amazing” so helpful:

“We’re called to care about others, to be kind and

considerate, to try our best to bless them.  

But, ladies, we don’t have to make everyone happy…

I protested, ‘But God, I want people to like me.

I want people to be happy with me.

Isn’t that what it means to be loving?’

And as I dug deeper into his Word it became clear

that, no, being loving doesn’t mean

pleasing people.  We are to love people

but we’re only asked to please God.”

Now those were some heavy chains that fell off of my shoulders!!  Whew!

(Note: out of habit, I do pick these heavy chains up again…and again…but with God’s help, I want to remember this refreshing truth more and more each day, and lay those chains down once again.  Hard for the “people-pleaser” in me, but I’m trying!)

I couldn’t have pushed myself past the whole process – I couldn’t have gone through it faster if I had tried.  Believe me, if there had been a way to get through this quicker, I would have sought it out and signed up on the very first day!  Let me tell you, I did push myself!  Through every. single. day.  I wouldn’t be sitting here blogging if I hadn’t.  God, in His great goodness, gave me to strength to push through every day the past 5 years.  It hasn’t been a cakewalk.

I am moving on.  Maybe at a snails pace, but I am moving on.  And by God’s grace, I’m moving forward.  I’m moving on for my own sake and I’m moving on because it’s the right thing to do.  I’m moving on because God cheers me on and in my heart, my greatest desire is to please HIM.

Even when I wanted to sit down and quit, God has not let me, for which I am forever grateful.

I know we all have our struggles.  Our valleys.  Our darkest nights.  And we all have a choice to make.  Will we stay in love with God and stay faithful to Him, or will we turn from the only One that can truly help us and walk away?

No matter what you may be struggling with today…this week…this year, please don’t turn from the Lord.  Joy does come in the morning!!

My desire for 2019 was to start blogging again…and it is oh so good to be back!