Distractions

“The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.” Matthew 13:20 As I was sitting on my porch tonight eating dinner, the Lord replayed the events of the previous week, which was one of the hardest spiritual battles I’ve fought in a long time! It started off on Tuesday when I was hit with a bout of depression. I tried to medicate myself with food (chocolate in particular), getting a manicure and my eyebrows done, but the heaviness loomed the next day. I finally realized that food had become my obsession, so I decided to join a weight loss program and found out that I had gained 30 pounds over the last year, which caused me to be even more discouraged. By Thursday, I just couldn’t take it anymore. The rejection of my loved ones (namely my children), feelings of loneliness, loss of purpose left me in a terrible mental state. I called a friend and cried to her and decided that I just needed a change. At that moment, I felt like the vision that God had given me to heal and restore my marriage and family was null and void. I’ve been waiting for years, and nothing has come to pass the I way I wanted it, surely I had missed God. I vowed to not waste another day, and began planning my goals for the next year. My list included: Lose 30 pounds, save $4,000 to move to a new town, get a new job, and marry a man who loves God more than me. My last goal was to have more children. I was pretty satisfied with my goals and set out to achieve them, even if it wasn’t exactly the plan God had laid out for me (with the exception of marrying my first husband again and having more children). But in the stillness of life, as I overlooked the lake and took bites of my soup, God whispered to my heart that in my pain I had become distracted by life. I, like so many others, had given up hope that God could do the impossible and restore a terribly broken marriage and family. I, like Sarah (Abraham’s wife) was willing to birth an Ishmael rather than wait for my promised child, Isaac. “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” Genesis 16:1-5 Nope. I choose to wait rather than get ahead of God and find myself in a bigger mess. Dear mother, if you are where I was just a few short days ago, then I urge you to quiet down your life, shut down the phone and computer, grab a cup of tea/coffee, and sit before the Lord, saying nothing. Allow Him to refresh the vision HE has for you and then WRITE IT DOWN immediately so the enemy can no longer distract you by the cares of this world. “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it[ will certainly come and will not delay. “ ~Habakkuk 2:2-4