Conflicted

I went through several titles and just couldn't come up with a good one. I'm going to preface this by saying that this is another one of my "being transparent" posts. Knowing that there are many people out there reading this that are not Christ-followers and also knowing that my family reads this, it is hard to put it out there but out there it is.

A while back I came across an blog that I wish I could remember. It struck a cord with me because the author was talking about how she suffered from anxiety attacks that would basically cripple her - make her want to stay in bed all day with the covers over her head. She said something to the effect that her life was great, too great, and that she expected the other shoe to drop and something horrible to happen in her life and with her family. The expectation of the worst caused her heart-stopping anxiety. She struck a cord with me because I struggle with that a lot.

I have a great life. I have a wonderful husband, 3 fantastic children, we go to a fabulous church, have great friends, live in a nice town and have a great house. I can't really complain about my life. It's TOO good - something bad just has to happen - right?

Then I read blogs/stories about young moms who have been stricken with cancer and are going through treatment and/or dying, leaving their poor young children & husbands behind. Ughhh - it just rips my heart out. Suddenly every ache and pain I have seems to be magnified and, of course, I think, that's what's going to happen to me. This pain I'm having is really cancer and I'm going to die (Ughh - I hate even writing that).

Or, I read stories about children who have been diagnosed with cancer and are going through treatment and/or dying and that too rips my heart out. The mere thought of losing one of my children is too much for me to think about. I NEVER want to have to go through that.

One blog that I've been reading, Especially Heather, noted the other day that "Do not fear" is found 365 times throughout the Bible. That's one for each day of the year, yet I am extremely fearful. I'm a Christ-follower yet I have made the very deliberate choice to not trust that He has the very best out there for me and I've instead chosen to live in fear of what might happen and how it might happen. How wrong is that?

Something I heard soon after accepting Christ has stuck with me all these years:

Not being a Christ-follower is easy in the hear-and-now but is hard when you get to eternity. Being a Christ-follower is hard now but in the end it's easy because we get to spend it with Jesus in heaven.

That is so true. It's easy to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour but sometimes it's just not easy to follow Him. There is a battle between good & evil - between Jesus & Satan. I've read the Book, I know who loses in the end & it's not Jesus, however, I do think that Satan sometimes wins some of the battles. Does that make sense?

When we completely surrender our lives to Christ, Satan gets mad. His goal is to separate us from Jesus. The Bible says that he roams around like a lion and seeks to devour us. For me, when I really start following Christ whole-heartedly, the way He wants me to, Satan come at me with the same old bag of tricks. I know them. I expect them and yet I fail to stand up against them every single time. I make myself so mad.

I haven't posted about much of what God has been teaching me lately because, honestly, I haven't been doing much listening. I got tired of fighting the anxiety and the fears that I was being bombarded with. I got so tired. I'll be honest, I chose to step back instead of trusting that Jesus would be my strength in times of weakness. I know, not a good example of a Christian.

However "safe" and "peaceful" it seemed to "take a breather", in the end it's not. I'm still choosing to be separated from the only One who loves me unconditionally, just as I am and that just stinks. Do I want to live like that? Is that the kind of Christian testimony I want to leave?

No, it's not.

Lord, please forgive me and be my strength - I am so weak.