The Real Me {Rated BH: Brutally Honest)

If you don't want to know how ugly my heart can be, then you need to just go read some happy decorating blog or some "my life is hard today, I have one perfect child" blog.

See there.  It is already seeping through.  


This morning I was texting with my husband about some things and that horrible, ugly, green eyed monster envy came hulking out of me in one of my responses.  I said, "Sorry.  I have trouble with envy for people who seemingly have charmed lives right now."  

There.  Now you know.  Now you can see that I am NOT some perfectly spiritual being who sees everything through God's lens of perspective.  I trust in a Mighty, Omnipotent God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or think.  But I am not Him.

It is far too easy for me to get my eyes off of what needs to be sanctified in me and what seems to be someone else's easier life.

We have been in the valley of the shadow of death for many months now and it has been dark and very lonely at times.  You might even say dark both figuratively and literally. Choked off from the sunlight of reality and the fellowship of the world outside of the medical bubble.

It doesn't take much for me to get my view skewed a bit from what really matters.  

So this morning a devotional said to live in the moment and directed me to a couple Scriptures that made me say "OUCH".  

"Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not!

And if worry can't do little things like that, what's the use of worrying over 

bigger things?"

Luke 12:25,26

There are so many things that my heart wants to dwell on and be anxious about.  My five children are always on my heart and mind which urges me to pray for them.  There is just so much to pray for right now and I guess today pushed me over the line between concern and worry.

 Some of you are with me in spirit as you have children whether grown or little that need to be drawn in by the Holy Spirit and wooed to His heart.  Others have medical needs or very real physical limitations that won't go away and you SO want them to but know that it is your reality.  Some have marriages that are far less than the perfect images and cute sayings about relationships that we see on social media every day screaming at us that we are less than.  

God's heart drew me in today and whispered to me that none of those things are what He desires for me. 

"Because of God's tender mercy, the light from heaven is about to break upon us, 

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

and to guide us to the path of peace."

Luke 1:78,79

This verse isn't describing a method, a plan or a program.  It is describing a Person.

The path of peace is not an actual path.  The light and the peace are Jesus Himself.  He is all I need.  He is God's tender mercy.  He is the light from heaven.   He needs to be my focus.

You need to know that I have to be redirected to that focus each and every moment of every day.  

I'm struggling through this path toward peace, toward Jesus.  He lives in me and I still struggle to get to Him each and every day.  

Sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death reveals to me who I am without Jesus.  I need Him desperately. 

We all do.