How was that for a cliff-hanger?  Yes, I could write a book about my experiences, perhaps I will someday.  Now, I suppose it would be good to go into a little about the past.  I don’t feel there’s much needed, because this is about God’s Truth and deliverance, the present and future.  And in the past, I wasn’t living in enough of that Truth.  That’s exactly how I got to be on that stone wall.

 

The details of how I got to where I was, aren’t really all that necessary to talk about.  I mean we all have our difficult situations to deal with, right?  Have you ever been on that bus?  You know the one labeled “My situation is worse than yours.”  I have.  Sure, I used to give all kinds of reasons, both physical and emotional, for being on that wall.

 

There’s a saying I’ve just recently learned…”Don’t compete, don’t complain, don’t compare.”  As you probably know, I could quote numerous Bible verses to back that one up.  I used to think “If I only talk (complain) this out enough, I’ll figure out how to make it better.”  I’m learning that complaining about my problems only served to tighten the chains:  “Why did God call ME to homeschool?, Why did He give me these hardships?, Why aren’t there more blessings and less difficulty?, Why did He do this and that?, This isn’t supposed to be this hard!” Tighter and tighter the wrench was turning around the chains.

 

I believe the main reason for ending up on that cold wall, chained and bound, could be summed up in one huge problem…LACK OF CONTENTMENT.  Plain lack of contentment with what God had given me in life.  It seems that we are born with a tendency to just be compainers and be discontented.  Do you agree?  It seems we learn to complain before we even learn to talk.  Just spend an hour with an one year old if you doubt me!

 

So, in my past, I had completely perfected feeling sorry for myself.  Negative thinkers like me aren’t necessarily obvious to most people, I didn’t walk around with a scowl on my face all the time, only thinking of myself, and always complaining out loud.  In other words, lots of people, even some close to me, had no idea how downhearted I was.  My husband and children were definitely the exception.

 

And after so many years of feeling discontented and thinking negative about my circumstances, my body began to actually believe there was something terribly wrong with me.  Don’t ever underestimate the mind-body connection.  “As a man thinketh, he is.”  Towards the end of 2005, my body began to react to the stress and anxiety in a very painful way.  I began having panic attacks and fell into deep depression.  Heart racing, palpitations, dizziness, numb limbs, loss of concentration, feeling completely out of control, nausea and extreme fatigue were just a few of the demons torturing me.  Yep, I was that poor woman chained up in that room, giving up all hope that I would ever be the same again.

 

Did I mention that during all this we were smack in the middle of an adoption process that God had, a year prior, clearly called us to?

 

Stay Tuned…..

 

Originally posted on July 31, 2007

Tags: Bible, testimony

This entry was posted by Melissa on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Bible, Faith Musings, Voice of Truth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.