love to paint

My life seems to be a series of ups and downs.  Sometimes it's day to day and sometimes moment to moment depending on what's going on with my husband and kids.  Sometimes it's very easy to fall into those downs of the ones around you who you love.  It's hard to resist and you get worn down.  Over the past few years, I've become very jaded about pithy self-help books that talk about encouragement as if you can take a pill and feel better.  The weariness in my heart is deep.  Post partum depression doesn't simply end.  When you've had children back to back and not a night's sleep that wasn't interrupted in seven years, there is a point that one comes to where we are at the end of ourselves.  Somehow, we keep going.  God keeps us going even when we don't want to. I wish I knew how to dispel the weariness in my soul.  I read a Christmas fiction book this afternoon and for a brief hour, heart breathed easily and freely forgetting all the ca...

The vitamins seemed to really help last month by the way, but tonight I'm weepy.   It's difficult sometimes to see the forest for the trees (is that the right phrase?) sometimes when things come up during times when I'm more emotional.  I wrote the previous post a few minutes ago. I know that there is a lesson God had for me--that indeed I am often a hard person for people to love.  But, that I am not to condemn myself for it.  I am to trust God that he will use this in my life and the lives of the people I come in contact with.  Isn't that an odd thing to say?  I realize that I might be a thorn in someone's side--I might be a "bug" to someone--without realizing it or meaning to.  (I would never mean to be!)  Yet, I have to trust that God created me this way and that God is working in all things.  Those are big things to trust God with and let go of!  I tend to dwell on my mistakes and faults.  I don't want to be imperfect. ...

Maybe I should have just titled it A truth about people pleasers. It's hard being a people pleaser. I am one. It messes with your motivations and why you do things. It also makes you feel horrible when you think someone doesn't like you. I feel like God is really challenging me in this area right now. I feel like I'm being faced with it right and left. I find myself afraid of what people have said and haven't said. I talked to my mom about something that someone said to me last week via email. My mom knows my life and what I have to cope with and my mom (who is a people pleaser and loves people a lot! with such a loving heart) told me to let it go. I can ruminate about things, because I just want to please everyone and I know my mom was wise to say this to me. Yesterday at church, a woman spoke with me about the church nursery at the new church we are attending. Over the past few months, God has been laying it on my heart to submit to authority and love my f...