God is Working in my Heart

So I've been thinking lately that I want this blog to be more than just pictures of my kids. Pictures are wonderful and this blog is the best place to keep track of just how much my sweet ones are growing and becoming who God has made them. But it's also a great place to share how He's changing me. Our God is so good and so faithful to complete His good work in us and I want to share how He's doing that in my life. I want you to walk away from this blog with a smile on your face because of my precious children and the funny things that they do, but also thinking and hopefully encouraged. I promise, I'm not going to go completely serious all the time, but I want to share my heart with you all. I want to take this year to share what I'm learning. I want to be more open with my faith and my love for the Lord. I want Him to use me to make a difference in peoples lives for HIS glory. I want to be open, to be transparent with my struggles so that others can learn along with me. I pray that this will be an encouragement to you, but also that it will be a great place for me to sort my thoughts.

With that said, I'll start with sharing a little bit about what I have learned this last six months since Benjamin has joined our family. God used the birth of this sweet one to grow me more than ever before. I've shared with you all my struggle with insomnia. It was horrible. There were seriously times I thought Jared was going to have to check me into the hospital. When you don't sleep for weeks on end you start to loose grip on reality. I had to depend on my family so much during this time for just the basics in life. It was frustrating and humbling. Along with the insomnia, I also struggled with anxiety and depression. Never before would I have thought this would be something I would have. It's a very real thing and something I couldn't just snap out of. The commercials are right, it does hurt your whole body. The anxiety made it hard for me to be home alone. Afraid of who knows what, but seriously nervous and afraid. It was awful!! It was so bad, I began taking medication. This was humbling for me and I struggled through the decision. But I was at a point that I needed help!

Through all this the Lord was with me. I turned to Him through prayer and the reading of His Word like I never had before. I turned to the women of my church for help. God used them in a mighty way to show me His faithfulness and to help me do what was hard--suck it up and move on. To choose everyday to do what was right. I clung to the verse, "If you know what is right and choose not to do this, for you this is sin." I had to choose to do right. I realized that all my life I've struggled with selfishness, laziness, lake of patience and not self disciplined. It affected every area of my life and it was hard work to get over it, to move past it. I couldn't take the easy way out of this, I had to do what was hard and change life patterns. I was reminded that the Bible tells us to put off the sin that entangles us and put on Godly character traits. I wanted to do this!!

In seeing my sins and how I struggled, I realized I hadn't ever walked with the Lord in a deep way that He wants us to. In 1 John it's outlined for us how to know if we are saved, if we are living the Christian life. Do we love one another? Are we bearing fruit? And the one that stuck out to me, am I abiding in Him? I realized I really wasn't. I loved God and wanted to do what was right, but how much of it was habit? How much of it was just because that's how I had always lived me life? I needed to have a deeper walk with my Savior! I WANTED to have a deeper walk with the Lord!! Through the depression, anxiety and insomnia I saw that I couldn't do this on my own. I had to depend on the Lord for everything. To do that, I had to know Him deeper. So into His Word I dove!! I began to saturate myself in God's Word and it's changed my life and changed who I am.

Along with reading His Word, I spend hours a day praying. I wake up praying, I go to sleep praying. I've learned to communicate with God as I go about my day and it's wonderful. I'm working hard at praying for others and not just my survival. I'm trying to memorize verses so I can pray God's Word for others.

Now things are so much better. It's been about a month since I've really struggled through an anxious day. A couple of months since I've had a sleepless night or needed medication to help me sleep. And the depression has been so much better for awhile now. I still have rough days. I still sin greatly, but God reveals my sin and it grieves me more than ever before. I am so thankful for that because it means God is continuing to grow me. He is causing me to want to be more like Him. I want to continue on this path of having a deeper walk with Him. I struggle to be diligent in my studying to set that time aside. To get up early and read is the hardest part, but my day truly is blessed when it begins with my daily Bible.

My prayer is that God uses this year to grow me and to help me to see where I can share His Word with others. I know God used my sweet Benjamin to start this change, but it began about a year before he was born. It started with my prayer to "be still and know that I am God." God answers prayer!!