I Have an Obsessive Thought Life

That statement is kinda twofold. It's both a confession and an honest acknowledgment and acceptance of who I am. While my obsessiveness is motivated by areas of insecurity, my obsessiveness also reveals something unique to me about God's character.

First, the confession. When I get excited, anxious, or really feel any strong emotion about something, that something will occupy my thought life almost unwaveringly for a long, long time. The stronger the emotion, the longer it stays, especially if it elicits any form of anxiety. Sometimes, though increasingly more often, my obsessive thoughts are an honest enjoyment of remembering what happened and the desire to hold on to it because it was good. More frequently though, my obsessive thoughts are a product of trying to figure things out, again particularly if the situation makes me feel anxious. There's a lie that's been implanted that if I can somehow understand everything about a specific situation, I will be able to figure out what's going to happen next. If I know what will happen next, I can prepare myself to handle it, especially if it will result in more anxiety. In order to protect myself, I obsess about a situation in order to make safe and wise decisions based on what will happen next. This (obviously) stems from trust issues and manifests itself as control issues. So yes, confessing to obsessive thoughts motivated by a fear that I'm gonna get hurt.

All that being said, I don't think my obsessive thoughts are always a bad thing. Sometimes, I will find myself thinking about something not in an effort to prepare myself for something bad to happen, but out of an honest enjoyment of thinking about it. Think about it, when you have a "God-moment" and you feel like you've really experienced something about Him, don't you find yourself thinking about only that purely because you've enjoyed that experience...at least for a little while? I think this motivation of obsessive thoughts, especially when those thoughts are of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) is completely okay!

I know not everyone has an obsessive thought-life and some people have trouble holding a single thought for more than a few minutes, but I'm realizing that my obsessiveness reveals a bit of God's character. God is obsessed with me, and with you! He loves us individually so much that Psalm 139:17-18 describes it like this: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand." And I thought that I thought about individual people too much!! I'm not justifying my obsessiveness motivated by insecurity, but if my unhealthy obsessive thoughts don't even come close to that many thoughts....HOLY CRAP!!! God's thoughts of me are motivated by His love for me, AND He has so many more of them than I do! Since I try to figure out my life by thinking about things over and over...and over and over...and God thinks about me more than I think about those individual situations, He definitely has everything figured out!!! To kinda mold it into my understanding, I imagine God sitting on His throne remembering things I've done in the past, thinking about things I'll do in the future, thinking about how pleased He is with me right now, excited about the ways He's going to reveal Himself to me in hours, days, weeks, months, and years ahead, and enjoying the specific ways He fashioned me!!!!  These thoughts "OUTNUMBER THE GRAINS OF SAND!!" I don't even think about myself THAT much and at least most of my obsessive thoughts are about myself and how different things are going to affect me and have affected me in the past.

In conclusion (haha), if God thinks about me more than I do, He really knows what He's doing AND it really is for the very best. I can trust Him completely!!

Post-Processing

This past week has been absolutely incredible!! Nothing particularly different circumstantially, but I feel like my entire heart and attitude has been different. Tuesday through Friday, I spent multiple hours each day with God, with the intention of processing my circumstances completely with Him, and did He ever meet me there!

Now for the update. Last Saturday night, Satan threw some pretty low lies my way that really struck my core. Sunday morning at church, the message was from 1Peter 2 where it talks about us being "chosen" and "a royal priesthood." Having the truth so evidently communicated when it was most necessary was fantastic and prepared me for the sermon I would hear that evening from Matthew 7. In it, Jesus is encouraging listeners to ask, assuring them that He wants to give, and give generously. Pulling from the parable of the prodigal son, he shared that God says to us, "you are always with Me and all I have is yours." I can't begin to describe the freedom I felt leaving church that night. Suddenly, I saw no point to complaining about what I want but don't have, being anxious about what might happen next, or anything that caused me to distrust God. See, in that moment I asked God to give me what I wanted by a specific time and I know God can say "no," but that "no" would be evidence of God's goodness and His tremendous interest in my life that He would want something better for me than what I want. Through Thursday, everything was truly right with the world! God was giving me words to comfort me that He would ask me to share with someone else the very next day! He also brought me to a point where I realized that I was actually "in love" with Him, after 10 years of knowing Him.

Friday brought a little surprise that reignited a lot of my biggest insecurities, that like wildfire spread to every less-than-ideal circumstance in my life right now. It was crazy how suddenly anxious I became, especially considering how I'd been feeling the whole week. I had to completely stop and process it. God showed me very clearly what had instigated my anxiety and why it had done so. See, I have a fear of rejection that runs really, really deep. As a result, part of me very much wants to take risks to maybe not be rejected this time, while another part is super anxious about the risk. I know it sounds like I might need to "seek out a mental health professional IMMEDIATELY" but really, I'm fine, just very self-aware. This fear has given Satan a very real foothold in my life so if he can get the idea that I might be rejected in my brain, every ounce of peace seems to unravel. Later that day, God brought to mind content from a book I was reading, about understanding that God's beloved are taken (chosen), which obviously stood out based on Sunday morning's teaching. God told me that I was "taken" even before I was born, in the sense that I'm not single. During my last dating relationship, other men's rejection just didn't matter because I was taken, I had been chosen, I was "off the market" so to speak. Applying that to God, He showed me that since I was taken before birth, any rejection since then just pales in comparison to my chosenness by God.

This was a fantastic revelation!! Last March, I had a dream in which God clearly expressed how much He loved me and I bought a ring to help me remember His love. Starting tomorrow, I intend to begin wearing it on my left ring finger as a symbol that I am committed to truly loving Him too. Moving it to that finger will be a difficult adjustment, and replacing it with a different ring one day (God-willing) will be challenging, but I know how badly I need the outward symbol to keep the inside knowledge in my brain. Completely worth it!!

Why, Why, WHY??

Doing a little bit of venting...

Why is it that all the jobs I want and would be qualified for are out of the state??
Why is it that every local job I apply for I don't hear back about?
Why is it that God is putting me in three very different, though equally frustrating, waiting games??
Why am I working at a job I don't enjoy?
Why does Satan constantly expose how my life is not going the way I wanted, and I'm not happy about it?
Why won't God just prove Himself unfaithful so I can return to being in charge of my own life?
Why am I so easily irritated by everything?
Why are the holidays that are fun for everyone but me approaching?
Why am I still single??

Answer: Because this is what God wants for me right now...to almost all of those questions.

I hate that answer! I'm sick of God not simply giving me what I want. I "know" God's plans are better than mine, but COME ON!!! It really seems like He's intentionally keeping me from every want I have, and then is calling me to trust Him with more! God, haven't I jumped off enough cliffs yet to please You? Could You please address a messed up area of my life that doesn't have to do with patience or contentment or trust...just for a little while??

I don't care right now that this will all be worth it in due time. Right now, it's really hard and I'm sick of it.

Cliff Notes Version of my Life

If I were ever asked to write Cliff Notes for books, I would definitely get fired within a week or two. When I think of stories, there's so much significance in the details that to leave them out would not do the story justice. I can briefly summarize, but if you give me more than five minutes to summarize, you will need to set aside 30 minutes to hear much more than you actually wanted to know ;-)

I was asked a couple days ago for the Cliff Notes version of my life a couple days ago and I failed miserably! First, I had 3 important things to tell her about. I gave the first two a couple sentences each, mostly the first thing is still difficult and the second thing is really, really difficult and builds into the third thing. There was no way I was gonna give a brief version of the third thing, so I didn't even pretend to.

Here however, I will give a very abridged version simply for the sake of uncertainty in what is actually gonna happen next. After seven years of serving somewhat begrudgingly, God is VERY clearly leading me to pursue college ministry long-term, into my "actual" adult life. It's absolutely incredible, but completely true. I've always kept away from seeing that leading cuz my heart broke for a completely different population, and I didn't want to sacrifice that passion for something I wasn't thrilled about doing. Well, I'm pursuing this with a passion for it! I suppose it's kinda always been there, a passion for some of the stuff that is in college ministry, but only in the past couple weeks have I realized the passion actually is college ministry. I have no clue what God intends for that to actually look like. Generally there are two alternatives for involvement as a non-student: staff or community member, and honestly, I do not wanna be on staff. Raising support, working exclusively with Christians (even if for non-Christians), not actually working within my passion for serving economically disadvantaged families are among the least appealing things to me. Considering my financial situation, my newly-realized passion for college ministry, and how God has been using me in various students' lives lately, pursuing an internship makes sense. Also, with an internship, I may find God actually leading me to pursue staff, which would be weird and super scary. But, I have to let God be in charge and be willing to let Him put me in situations through which I can hear Him speak.

I know that was a long abridged version, but there is SOO much more, like why an internship specifically, how I feel He's using me to make an impact, why I'm so oppositional to staff right now, some of my hesitations about actually pursuing this and how God's met me in those, etc, etc. It's incredible!! I'll be meeting with one of the pastors some time after Fall Getaway to see if this actually is an open door. Regardless though, I'm here for a while, with a very specific preferred role in mind that is yet more details not included here.

Annoying?

I've been learning over the past several months that many of my friends have a very limited amount of patience with me. By very limited I simply mean that it's not as much as I need, which is how I suppose it's supposed to be. See, a year ago...even nine months ago, my entire life was completely different than it is right now. I was 24 years old and had a really good idea of what 2011 was going to look like. Every single thing I thought was gonna happen didn't, and things I thought would never happen did, and there's still 2 1/2 months left!!! Really since the beginning of the year, there has been no end to the drama in my life and it's been ridiculously overwhelming. Whenever things start to settle down, some new change has to be dealt with. I'm not good at handling change, especially not changes that hit the very core of my being. As a result, I've given in to a lot of complaining, and my friends have definitely heard it all, surprisingly this blog has heard only a portion of it. I've noticed some of my friends begin to withdraw from me when I start expressing the difficulty of my circumstances. I've been called whiny, directly scolded for my complaining, and directly asked to stop talking about certain things...all multiple times in the past two months.

Believe me, I know it's an issue, but knowing of the issue honestly doesn't make my circumstances an easier to deal with. I find myself tempted to withdraw from sharing my life and putting up a front like I did as a child. Let's be honest, if people are gonna correct me, I need to also be directly told I'm loved. Otherwise, I feel criticized and judged.

God's really smart...I guess. I've begun staying in Aurora more frequently between work shifts to save money on gas. I went all day Monday with my only adult interaction being with my mom and youngest roommate, outside of the parents at work. I'm extroverted, and am having a hard time being okay with God limiting my social time so much. I would honestly enjoy five hours every day of the week, and I think I'm at maybe 8 hours for the past 3 days. Meanwhile, my circumstances continue to overwhelm me and, as if it were possible, get more stressful. I've got two big waiting games going on simultaneously and something of a financial crisis. That's probably a really good summary actually of the problems. I have a bunch of coping strategies (some worse than others) but the one I'm most comfortable with using has been being ultra-social in an attempt to compensate the stressfulness with fun. Well, staying in Aurora and not taking a nap is definitely not helping my ability to be social when I finally get home at 6:45...only to leave to do it again 12 hours later.

As a result, I've been spending a lot of time with God, mostly complaining to Him about these circumstances and how He's taken away my favorite coping method. However, He's been showing me how reliant I am on my friends, and while I definitely have a need for community, I cannot expect my community to love me nearly as much as I need to be loved. I asked God if He ever gets frustrated with me. If He ever thinks "Amber, just shut-up, listen, and do what I tell you to already!" If He's ever tempted to give me exactly what I want when I want it just so that when it falls apart He can sit and laugh at me. I ask Him those things frequently, and it's always the same answer, never! I asked how come my friends seem to feel, think, or wish these very things on me. Already knowing my complaining to be a sin, God reminded me about grace. Honestly, my friends don't love me enough to extend as much grace to me as I need extended, and that's okay...not easy, but okay. See, God does love me enough and His grace, extended on a cross, demonstrates that love.

I'm not happy about this process. It's hard and painful and I desperately want it all to be over. But, I will turn to God, looking to His love to comfort me as His hand continues to guide me. HA!! I've been very familiar lately with God's leading hand, but not His comforting hand. No wonder I keep asking God to just stop talking already. I don't want more direction, I just want to be held and told "I love you, Amber!" in a way that only God can make real to me.

Hello Spiritual Warfare!

FINALLY!!! God allowed me to see what I've been needing to see for months now!

A couple weeks ago, I reached a point of just being overwhelmed by nothing going according to my plans, and things actually seeming like my plans were intentionally being blown up just to spite me for making those plans. I was frustrated with everything! Not getting what I wanted when I wanted it, other people having things go smoothly that I'd struggled through, God placing specific restrictions on my actions when others' were doing what I desired repeatedly. Clearly, a lotta comparison which grew my frustration, impatience, and grumbling. When Satan struck one very close friendship with a comparison challenge, I fought back! Not only did I decide to apologize for the comparing myself to her, I sought the truth in the situation to fight the lies. Simply put, the truth is that her friendship is a massive blessing and, while it may be forced to change, it's not changing right now and God is gonna take care of everything should it need to change. At this point, I did not see any of this as being an evil scheme. Somehow, I thought that I was just falling into this comparison sin on my own accord. Either way, attacking that close of a friendship was the beginning of the end for Satan.

Then, more unpredictable stuff that seemed intended to just make my life that much more difficult happened. I got a flat tire, had to ask for help to get the donut on (and did very little of the work myself), and then had to pay for a new tire, with the scare that I was gonna have to wait a couple days to get one. While I was at the garage waiting, I was reading The Sacred Romance and one small line referred to spiritual warfare and everything clicked!! My repetitive trials in patience and trust in God are NOT evidence that God is not good or that God wants to make my life really, really hard right now. Don't get me wrong, God is totally using all of these trials to thoroughly glorify Himself and build my relationship with Him, but He is not slamming me repeatedly to make me learn these things...that is the Devil, and he hates me. God reminds me through each struggle that He is very much with me every single time! Satan hates that I've been choosing to trust in spite of my feelings, so he's been throwing me under any kind of bus he can find. Any kind of difficult circumstance to challenge my faith that God allows him to touch, I'm sure he is.

In summary, Satan hates me and is out to get me! But he will never win because God is stronger than him! Now that I see Satan's attack for what it is, I'm reaching for my armor and my Father rather than discipline and forced self-control. SO MUCH PEACE!!!! So little burden!! LOVE IT!!

Today in the Word Sermon at 9am

LOVE 103.3 at 9am!!! On Wednesday morning, I heard part 2 of this sermon! part 1 was about Jesus feeding the 5 thousand right after John the Baptist died, and part 2 was about Jesus walking on water. When Peter joined Him and started sinking, Jesus asked him "why did you doubt?" I mean, really? Peter suddenly realizes he is standing on water...he's not exactly a fisherman who doesn't know specific laws about nature. I'm sure he's fallen out of a boat often enough to know that humans sink in water. The speaker adjusted the translation a little bit to say "Why did you begin to doubt?" Peter stepped outta the boat with no reservations and started walking towards Jesus. It wasn't until he considered the natural impossibility of what he was doing that he began to sink. Peter's experiential knowledge of the world overcame his faith that Jesus had said come.



This story is in no way whatsoever foreign to me. With this story, God led me to "step out" and go on a church plant, trusting Him to not let me drown. One of the first times I heard this story, I remember my heart desiring to one day walk on water, finding myself in love with that level of faith. My freshman year in college, I found myself on a retreat walking on a frozen lake, aka water. (Not to be confused with skating. The whole concept of gliding in skates is too hard for me, but walking in skates, that I understand.) Even that long ago God has been avidly pursuing me with His irony.

Here I am, almost 10 years into my Christian faith, listening to that very story again with so much more speaking to my heart, but really the same concepts. My circumstances scare me. Let's be honest, the last time God told me to "step out" 51/2 years ago with the church plant, it wasn't exactly easy, and for a while it felt like I was treading water. Like Jesus hadn't even reached to pull me up and I was doing it all on my own. When I got too tired, finally gave up and said (in far more words) "Lord, save me!" He was faithful to do so, just as He had promised. Today, I heard Jesus say (in far fewer words), "Your circumstances need not dictate your faith. Your efforts are futile, yes, but with faith in My authority over your life, you can stand."

My reaction: couldn't I have learned all this some other way?? This storm is scary, so scary that when Jesus entered the scene, I doubted it was actually Him. When I sought affirmation that it was Him and as a result He said "Come," I stepped out. Now, I'm somewhere between standing on and treading the water. I'm very aware of the wind and how scary it is to be standing on water, but Jesus is still there with me, and He did say "Come." Maybe I'm treading water, still fighting on my own to believe what He'd said to be good and true. I am definitely getting tired, and thinking it might be time to ask Him to "save me" from drowning in my doubt.

Why did I start doubting in the first place?