Second Thoughts

So, for the past week or so, I've been having second thoughts about going to Canada this summer. I don't know if it's because it's almost winter, and it's bland and cloudy outside, which just leads to an overall I-don't-want-to-do-anything-but-just-sit-here mood, or if Satan is just trying to bring me down.

I noticed sometime last year that he'll do that. I'll be really confident in my plans for the future and with the direction that my life is going, then satan comes along and whispers in my ear, "What do you think you're doing? You can't do that, you'll never make it there. You're not good enough, you don't have what it takes." And I believe for a while. When I believe it, I falll into a depression of sorts, I have no motivation be productive, it gets harder to laugh, and I don't find things I would normally see as funny as amusing.

How long it lasts varies. Sometimes, I'll be stuck in that rut for days. Sometimes months. Those longer periods of time really get to me. I find myself not wanting to go to church or listen to Christian music, and eventually, I get to the point where I no longer have a quiet time with God. Thankfully, somehow God always shakes me out of my slump and says, "Listen to Me. Listen to My voice, to My teachings. Don't get sidetracked. You are worth something, you are good enough." And He picks me up, dusts me off, and sends me back on the Way.

Sometimes, I find myself realizing what has happened, and I fight it. I look myself in the mirror, and I say, "You have absolutely no reason to be thinking those thoughts. What has God ever done to mae you believe that you are not good enough? You are a child of God, and that makes you worth it." Then I open my Bible, and I read until I'm satisfied.

A few of my favorite verses include Jermiah 29:11-14, which if you haven't read the verses after "I know the plans I have for you, for a future and a hope, for your well being not your harm" then you should read them. Not only does God say, "I know what is going to happen to you, I know what my plans are for you," but He says, "In the days when you call to me, I will come to you and bring you back to the place I promised to you." He makes a promise, that when we do get lost, and we stumble, when we get to the point of crying out for Him to help us back up, that He will be there to pick us up. He never leaves, He never says, "You made that choice now live with it," He says he will pick us up, and put us back in the goodness of His perfect Will.

Another verse that I have more recently discovered, is Genesis 1:31 "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day." in every verse that describes the end of one of the Days of Creation, it says "And God saw that it was good," But if you notice in verse 31 it says "and it was very good." This was the end of the sixth day, after he created man. Everything up to that point had been only good, but man, God said that man was very good. I read that, and I unde4rstand that I was created intricatelly and delicately, and I would not have been made if God did not have a purpose for me. I am very good.

Just by writing this I have felt better about leaving. I don't feel as confident as I did, but I have that peace back, that everything is going to work out fine.

Going where God Sends me,
Emily E.