That is how I would describe my life right now--overdrive. Work has gotten busier than ever which is exactly what I prayed for. I have presentations every week, HOPE is a part of a 10 week after-school program, connections are finally being made at WOCC, men are finally volunteering, and my calendar is looking messier everyday. Thank God for the activity. But in the thanking God I've realized that along with all these new opportunities, I need an extra measure of peace and grace and stillness. I am a person who gets overwhelmed easily when I have a lot of stuff going on. It's so easy for me to exhaust myself. I realized that last week. And praise God for showing me that early. I need to carefully guard my time, especially my time with HIM. I need to know my limits. I need to find and take advantage of moments of stillness during the day. My desire is to always possess a quiet and calm spirit that is in complete reliance on and communion with the Lord. Any other way and I will get burnt out, fed up, and overwhelmed.
Honestly I don't know how to do this yet. But i am taking it day by day. Praying and asking God to help me cultivate stillness. Taking deep breaths. Closing my eyes and saying short prayers at my desk, in my car, wherever. Focusing on Jesus. Because the Word tells me that He will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him because he trusts in Him. I will be honest and say that that verse comforts me and eludes me at the same time. It eases me to know that all i have to do is have a mind stayed on Him and peace will come. And then I realize I have no idea how to keep my mind stayed on Him and what that looks like practically. I need to include this in my prayer time. Lord, show me how to keep my mind stayed on You.
I have been struggling with gluttony lately. Which sucks because I just came out of a fast. It's like really though, Lakeisha did you learn anything? But now I realize that is just condemnation. It gets me nowhere. Anyway I realized that i was consciouly stuffing my face even when I wasn't hungry. It's like I couldn't say no to food. I couldn't put it down and come back to it later. Ugh. This is something I prayed about during the fast (I'll admit it wasn't any real fervent prayer) so I was frustrated to see it beomce an even more glaring issue. So just recently (like yesterday or this morning) I gave it to the Lord again. Looked back at a few Scriptures. And I thot about how not so great I've been feeling lately and how my food intake is surely a contribution to that. And today progress was made. Praise God! AT work there were cinammon rolls and I only ate one . I was so tempted to eat more than that, but I was able to tell my body no. Yay! Secondly, I took an apple for lunch along with my tuna. I was full after eating the tuna and instead of forcing the apple down I saved it. I didnt' even eat it later on in the day becuase I simply didnt' get hungry again. Double yay! And then I got home today and made popcorn. I made so much it couldn't all fit in the bowl so I left some. Well when I finished, I was on my way to get the bit I left something said to me, "your full, you don't need it" and that was that. I didn't touch it. Triple yay! I just need to rely on the Spirit of God to help me fight this battle. I cannot battle sin in my own power. I lose..as evidenced by my two week eating binge. No more. Sin cannot dominate me. Thank you Lord! It's just one day, but it encourages me to know that I've made some baby steps.
Um so yeah. Great things are happening. God is moving, But I see that I need to grow. I need a deeper rel.ship with God. I desire more. I love how things never get boring with God. He'll take you to a new level and it'll be exhilirating and thrilling and then you get to a point where that level has been maxed out. And you begin to seek more. And He takes you higher....and you're there for a bit until you realize "I want more" and there's still yet another level even tho it seemed like when you were at the previous level, life with God couldn't get any better. That blows my mind. I serve such a big God that no matter how many times I think "wow God could it get any better" the answer is always a resounding "YES!" and then He shows me how....
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