Has life thrown you into a tailspin? I can speak from experience that I am still spinning, but not so much out of control. I am starting to level off.
I have watched my psychological & emotional state deteriorate in the face of adversity. The strain of a challenging marriage, stressful job, managing extended relationships with my kids, foreclosed home, losing my job, losing my father and losing my overall future focus. Spent so much time focused on surviving day to day that I lost my vision of what the future me was supposed to and will look like if when I regain focus.
But as many people have written and spoken about it in the past, there comes a time in your life when you find peace in the midst of your storm. I am finding that peace. My happiness no longer dependent upon whether I have a lot of money, a new car or a new home. The success of my career no longer determining the level of man I am. My emotional bank empty because I don't have anyone or anything filling it. Personally drained due to the lack of success in all the things I am connected too.
One by one as things, people, career started to leave me, I felt the loss of things and it felt like failure. Only time would be my best friend and begin to show me how my loss was more like chains being broken. Marriage that I wanted to work, but would not with two people moving towards the same mark, Career that was not fulfilling me anymore and was just a paycheck and a painful trip every morning. A home that we could afford, but through financial distress and mismanagement in my household, we could no longer afford. All of these were chains keeping me bound to a mere existence. When I look back and think about what my life was, so proud to have pushed through and not over reacted to a bad situation and made it worse. Accepting loss and seeing gain. Once bound to a place you despise only to move to a place that brings you joy because you bring joy to it...everyday.
God is amazing. Yes, I said God is amazing. Deliverance in the Merriam Webster dictionary is defined as "The act of delivering someone or something." or "The state of being delivered." I can only speak for myself when I say that I am in the state of being delivered from myself. My thoughts, my hang-ups, my negative emotions, my lack of vision. The bible states that "You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation-I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part." in 2 Corinthians 1:11, The Message. The King James Version states that "Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.", in Psalms 18:2. I could go on with many more scripture, but I think you get the picture.
Through prayer and trust in God, He set my sights higher. Through changing my mind about how I see me and trusting in Him fully. I am a work in progress. But I am progressing forward.
