Almost every morning I wake up with a heaviness, a judgement of myself, and that judgement says, "Debbie, you failed again." It didn't used to be like this. I've never been a morning person and probably never will be. You people who jump out of bed, ready to meet the day the second your eyes open, you are, well, foreign to me. I start slow and on the days I don't work, I start late. But this feeling that I am waking up with has nothing to do with my disdain for mornings and everything to do with how I'm feeling about myself.
This is not about losing sight of who I am in Christ. I know He holds my life in His hands. I know He has plans for me. I know He loves me just the way I am. I know He has a purpose for my life. Those are important truths and I cling to them. But the simple fact is that, since Paul left, I have developed, enjoyed, and perfected some pretty bad habits. And while I'd like to blame this trend on Paul, I cannot. (Well, maybe just a little bit!) I'm responsible and no one else. Damn! In and of themselves, these bad habits might not be considered "self-destructive". But I am classifying them as such because I have indulged this lack of discipline long enough. I am tired of waking up disappointed in myself. For the sake of transparency, here's my list of things I do that make me dislike myself...
I stay up way too late.
I eat way too much (especially later in the evening).
I eat in bed.
I waste far too much time on the computer.
I like to drink wine with every dinner.
I avoid God.
This list is not exhaustive but it's a good start. I think if I could get a handle on any of this stuff, my outlook on life would be better. Let me examine these a little. I've always been a night owl so the staying up late business has been a struggle under the best of circumstances. At 60, however, I'm just too old for that kind of thing. I'm exhausted every morning as I drag myself off to work. No fun! Eating and drinking? I don't drink too much at a time. It's not that at all. But wine every night? That's just empty calories. What happened to just having water with dinner? Speaking of dinner, what happened to it? Most nights I grab whatever assortment of things I find that require absolutely no preparation, cart them off to my bedroom, and sit in bed with my T.V. and computer. My mattress has a well defined butt print in it from me sitting there so much. I then browse Pinterest and Facebook for hours, usually eating the whole time.
I know I've left one item out so far. I'll get to that in a minute. As I look at the paragraph above I am thinking, "No sweat! This is an easy fix. Just come home from work, fix an actual dinner that contains a vegetable, stop eating after dinner, do something constructive in the evening, relax for a short time and go to bed by 11:00." Done! The problem is that my mind and body have to be retrained. I've been doing this for too long. I come home with good intentions that are immediately derailed by bad habits that demand attention. And because I have allowed my circumstances to rob me of daily joy, I give in to those bad habits because I just don't care. I say I don't care but the fact that I wake up in the morning kicking myself says otherwise. And, I've realized that overindulgence sucks the enjoyment out of simple pleasures. A good meal and a nice glass of wine? Nothing special anymore. When you eat and drink constantly, it loses appeal and is not satisfying. Staying up late? No fun there, nothing to look forward to. Not when you do it all the time. Zoning out on the computer? No reward anymore. It's run-of-the-mill, boring.
Doing whatever I liked, whenever I wanted, didn't free me. It has enslaved me. I am sick of it.
Now...the bigger problem...avoiding God. There are times when I feel like He and I are on the same page. I turn to Him instantly, pray a lot, ponder and think about Him. But much too often, I avoid Him. I hit a wall where I am experiencing something that is painful. (Painful stuff has been a bit frequent these last few years.) But instead of turning that pain over to Him, I avoid it completely. I don't pray about it. I don't talk to Him, I don't tell Him about it. Of course, He knows already and I know that. But I deprive myself of the inexpressible relief of intentionally sharing it with Him. I keep the burden to myself. Sometimes, I deny the pain so successfully that I forget about it until all of a sudden, without warning, anger rears its ugly head at the most surprising times. It's a mystery to me why I do this over and over again. It's almost as if I am afraid that life will hurt more if I verbalize it to God. Or maybe I'm afraid that He'll ask me to give it to Him and somehow I think that trivializes what I'm going through. Whatever my reasons, I need to get over it. He wants to carry my burdens. He hurts with me, for me, because of me. Unbelievable!!
"
Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."
I have no answers for myself at this point. This is not a New Year's Resolutions sort of thing. But for me, just writing something down helps to clarify my thoughts and allows God to give me some direction. I've got to break this crazy cycle. Maybe today.
