Fortitude

Work's been mad this week and I'm was so stressed yesterday - at one point, I felt my chest tighten and realized I how overwhelmed I felt.

It's really strange but I'm reading Jerry Bridges 'Respectable Sins' now and for some reason, it's helping my stress not raising the stress level further. Maybe because he lists anxiety, frustration, impatience and irritability as sins and draws your attention to the various bits of scripture to remind us of .....(you got it!) God's sovereignty and holiness.

I'm emotional (B.A in Eng lit and loves gothic suspense novels? Yeah, emotional is the understatement of the year)and learning to deal with my emotions in a manner that honours God is.... well, lets just say that its an on going project commissioned and undertaken by Christ and probably won't be completed till the day I die. But every so often, there's a progress report or update :)

Giving thanks for:-

+ conversation with the sister yesterday. we laughed and caught up and teased each other. 'twas the highlight of my day :) will post snippets from that sometime.

+ a meeting in which my boss was present - I'd never have been able to control the other guy on my own or gotten so much information out of him otherwise.

+ music - Eva Cassidy's Songbird and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony to help dial down the stress

+ reading - good lit helps refocus the mind on what's really important.

+ running - dopamine release, yeah!

Vent over, just needed to blurt all this out to ... well, whoever lurks around reading this space.

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"My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God's word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes--many times--my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens--and it happens every day in some measure--I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.

That's the way I live my life every day. I hope you are with me in that battle."

- John Piper, Finally Alive, pages 165-166

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"Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks at the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers."

- Paul Miller, A Praying Life, page 55

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Lord I am willing to -
Receive what you give,
Lack what you withhold,
Relinquish what you take.

- Anonymous

(From 'Respectable Sins' by Jerry Bridges)