Categories: anxiety, self-esteem
Date: 25 February 2010 23:39:33
How quickly I moved from the joy and thanksgiving of Tuesday to the moaning grumbler I am now.
Through podcasts and the short course I am doing [which is going well; when I can get my thoughts together I will write more on it] I am learning the importance of being thankful, which I am appreciative of. I try, as best I can, to be thankful for all the great blessings I have: a good family, good friends, good colleagues, good health -- apart from the mental health struggles, and more. I do have a pretty charmed life. I do try give thanks to God for all my blessings, even if it seems tried and forced as it does currently.
But at the same time, in times of frailty, the cry "Why me?" is not far from my lips. Work alternates between being so frustrating and so demanding [self-imposed mainly: perfectionism] that the simplest things seem a struggle. I have these feelings of extreme unworthiness that colour everything I do and say. I am struggling with other feelings I cannot explain or understand. I have no confidence in myself to do anything. I am scared. Terrified. Petrified.
I feel, as horrible as it is to admit, that I have no hope. No hope at all. And this from someone who constantly blabbers on about faith, hope and love, while at the same time, hypocritically, not cultivating or believing it myself as I should.
Add to this the fact I am going to stand in front of my church this Sunday and talk about a life lived in Christ when I am barely on the first step of the ladder of faith.
I can but pray that faith, as small as it may be in me, can, beyond my expectations, uphold hope; for I do trust in God. Not as much as I should. Not as much as I may like to believe I do. But, however shrouded my faith is by my doubts and lack of hope, all I can do is trust in the mercy and love of God. And there is comfort and relief in this: for it is not all up to me, but God, who loves me and loves all, and who does work wonderful things in His people. So perhaps there is that a bit of hope still there in the darkness of a whirling and tumultous sea that is my thoughts currently: however small, that flicker of light, of hope in God, is there.
Lord, have mercy.