God, please take this.
This post was mainly written at about 3am this morning, as such it's somewhat disjointed and probably makes little sense but it kind of says a lot about where I am right now so I'm going to post it anyway...
I'm also going to use it as my link in with Monday Ministry over on Tania's blog.
I turn 21 tomorrow. Birthdays are difficult - they're a celebration yet I also find myself looking back over all the things I have failed at. Right now, life feels like a bit of a train wreck. I'm struggling to have hope for my future and in all honesty, I have no desire to celebrate. I haven't been to church in weeks, I've stopped messaging people back when they ask where I am, I've stopped trusting that God has a plan for me, and that it doesn't matter that I don't know what that plan is. I got rejected from the course I'd applied to do. That rejection has hit me so deeply and left me questioning my entire existence. The first evening I bawled my eyes out, I then put on a brave face and told everyone it didn't matter. In reality? I feel like I'm breaking as a person. So far, University has been the biggest failure of my life. I feel completely inadequate and it's hard. To get rejected from my Plan B has just increased that tenfold.There are many contributing factors to my lack of hope right now and I'm hoping that breaking them down, trying to bring it back to God and generally getting it written down might ease it.
In just a few months time, a few of my friends will be starting their NQT year, many others will be entering their final year of Uni. and starting the job hunt. I am so happy for them and I know they will make incredible teachers but I am so sad not to be joining them. I'm sure now that teaching was the wrong career for me, but it's hard to move away from something you'd imagined yourself doing for years. Even if I hadn't developed POTS, even if I hadn't had multiple hospital admissions, I still think I would be considering leaving the course. I loved working with children, but there is a huge relief with knowing I'm not going into teaching. There is also a huge sense of failure, of having let people down. I worry too much about what everyone I was on the course with thinks of me - do they see me as a failure?
Galatians 1:10 - "Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant."
I have fallen into the trap of loving human praise more than the praise of God (John 12:43). I desire the approval of my peers, my colleagues, my parents, my siblings, my church with such fervour - yet do I yearn for God to approve of me in the same way? He is the only opinion I need to care about - and His opinion of me is steadfast and unchanging. I am His daughter, His princess, His beloved.
Being rational, I haven't failed - I have changed path. I still achieved a Certificate of Education in Primary Education. I am still more qualified than I was in 2010 when I first moved to Brighton. I've also achieved many other things in that time despite actually going through some pretty tough stuff.
For about a year I've wanted to follow a more clinical route. I batted the ideas out of my head because I was a teacher, that's always what I was going to be and well...I'm just ridiculous to consider it. And then I left teaching. I gave it a stab and applied, I wasn't too hopeful, I only have prehospital experience and I wrote my personal statement at the last minute but it was still absolutely gutting to be rejected. In reality, I'm probably not well enough to consider going straight into another intense degree right now and it'd do me good to get some time out of studying to really consider my future. It's hard though. I am so consumed with self doubt. I know I want to do something clinical - but I'm worried that others are judging me for that, thinking I'm not good enough, not suited. I don't believe I'm good enough.
Psalm 139:16 - "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!"
Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
1 Thessalonians 5:24 “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”
My life plan is customised, good and guaranteed (taken from here). It's so hard to remind yourself daily that you're not the one in control. I truly believe that God does not bring any bad into my life, but that He can use the bad things to make good. Although I believe these things, it's hard to apply them as truth in my life. I want to do this in my own strength, I want life to go the way I have planned it. Yet my plan has failed, it's fallen apart around me - at what point will I say enough is enough and just trust.
At the moment I'm stuck in a no mans land. I was too ill to continue my degree, but most of the time I'm well enough to be doing something. I refuse to give up work/volunteering/life in favour of illness. My GP thinks I'm doing too much, my friends think I'm doing too much. How do you gauge how ill you actually are? I can't afford not to work, I love my job yet currently - 2 shifts a week leaves me exhausted and poorly. I don't want to be ill and I'm petrified of becoming someone who's life is defined by illness. Becoming ill means giving up things I love and enjoy. Is this stubbornness making me worse though? I'm needing IV fluids more and more regularly, some days I am so unbearably fatigued it's painful, often I can't eat without being sick. Take the last week for example, more days than not I've had less than 200 calories. I've lost 5kg in the space of a week. Right now, I have that weight to lose, but if I keep going I will get ill. I'm worried that when September comes, I'm not going to manage full time work.
I find it really hard to find God in illness, I wrote a post a while ago on healing and what I wrote then still rings true for me. Except now my health is even more fragile than it was back then. Although we have a diagnosis of sorts - there is still a lot to be investigated and treated and while I wait on that happening I feel like things are getting worse. I am so determined not to let that happen, but in pushing myself to keep going, I'm often making myself ill.
Isaiah 40:29 - "He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless."
2 Corinthians 12:9 - "Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
Throughout the bible there are so many reminders of God's strength in my weakness but it's so difficult to cling to these. It's so hard to accept my physical weaknesses.
There are a few things that need to happen for me to move forward from where I am right now, some practical, some emotional and some spiritual, some in my control and some out of it. There are a few big ones though, firstly, I need to stop avoiding church and small group. I need to face up to no longer being a student and go to the bank etc. to change my accounts. I need to seek advice on what my options are financially, I need to look at whether full time work is realistic and what things I need to sacrifice in order to stay well if I'm going to work full time. I need to continue working with my GP to try and get to the bottom of everything. I need to let myself cry. All these things need to happen and I need to take the steps to let them. There are ways forward from here and I always have a hope in Jesus, but it's so easy to lose my hope for my life.
I have this song on repeat right now. I may not be able to pray, I may not be going to church, but I still know God is with me and I can really feel Him through music at the moment.
TTFN x
I'm also going to use it as my link in with Monday Ministry over on Tania's blog.
I turn 21 tomorrow. Birthdays are difficult - they're a celebration yet I also find myself looking back over all the things I have failed at. Right now, life feels like a bit of a train wreck. I'm struggling to have hope for my future and in all honesty, I have no desire to celebrate. I haven't been to church in weeks, I've stopped messaging people back when they ask where I am, I've stopped trusting that God has a plan for me, and that it doesn't matter that I don't know what that plan is. I got rejected from the course I'd applied to do. That rejection has hit me so deeply and left me questioning my entire existence. The first evening I bawled my eyes out, I then put on a brave face and told everyone it didn't matter. In reality? I feel like I'm breaking as a person. So far, University has been the biggest failure of my life. I feel completely inadequate and it's hard. To get rejected from my Plan B has just increased that tenfold.There are many contributing factors to my lack of hope right now and I'm hoping that breaking them down, trying to bring it back to God and generally getting it written down might ease it.
In just a few months time, a few of my friends will be starting their NQT year, many others will be entering their final year of Uni. and starting the job hunt. I am so happy for them and I know they will make incredible teachers but I am so sad not to be joining them. I'm sure now that teaching was the wrong career for me, but it's hard to move away from something you'd imagined yourself doing for years. Even if I hadn't developed POTS, even if I hadn't had multiple hospital admissions, I still think I would be considering leaving the course. I loved working with children, but there is a huge relief with knowing I'm not going into teaching. There is also a huge sense of failure, of having let people down. I worry too much about what everyone I was on the course with thinks of me - do they see me as a failure?
Galatians 1:10 - "Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant."
I have fallen into the trap of loving human praise more than the praise of God (John 12:43). I desire the approval of my peers, my colleagues, my parents, my siblings, my church with such fervour - yet do I yearn for God to approve of me in the same way? He is the only opinion I need to care about - and His opinion of me is steadfast and unchanging. I am His daughter, His princess, His beloved.
Being rational, I haven't failed - I have changed path. I still achieved a Certificate of Education in Primary Education. I am still more qualified than I was in 2010 when I first moved to Brighton. I've also achieved many other things in that time despite actually going through some pretty tough stuff.
For about a year I've wanted to follow a more clinical route. I batted the ideas out of my head because I was a teacher, that's always what I was going to be and well...I'm just ridiculous to consider it. And then I left teaching. I gave it a stab and applied, I wasn't too hopeful, I only have prehospital experience and I wrote my personal statement at the last minute but it was still absolutely gutting to be rejected. In reality, I'm probably not well enough to consider going straight into another intense degree right now and it'd do me good to get some time out of studying to really consider my future. It's hard though. I am so consumed with self doubt. I know I want to do something clinical - but I'm worried that others are judging me for that, thinking I'm not good enough, not suited. I don't believe I'm good enough.
Psalm 139:16 - "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!"
Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
1 Thessalonians 5:24 “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”
My life plan is customised, good and guaranteed (taken from here). It's so hard to remind yourself daily that you're not the one in control. I truly believe that God does not bring any bad into my life, but that He can use the bad things to make good. Although I believe these things, it's hard to apply them as truth in my life. I want to do this in my own strength, I want life to go the way I have planned it. Yet my plan has failed, it's fallen apart around me - at what point will I say enough is enough and just trust.
At the moment I'm stuck in a no mans land. I was too ill to continue my degree, but most of the time I'm well enough to be doing something. I refuse to give up work/volunteering/life in favour of illness. My GP thinks I'm doing too much, my friends think I'm doing too much. How do you gauge how ill you actually are? I can't afford not to work, I love my job yet currently - 2 shifts a week leaves me exhausted and poorly. I don't want to be ill and I'm petrified of becoming someone who's life is defined by illness. Becoming ill means giving up things I love and enjoy. Is this stubbornness making me worse though? I'm needing IV fluids more and more regularly, some days I am so unbearably fatigued it's painful, often I can't eat without being sick. Take the last week for example, more days than not I've had less than 200 calories. I've lost 5kg in the space of a week. Right now, I have that weight to lose, but if I keep going I will get ill. I'm worried that when September comes, I'm not going to manage full time work.
I find it really hard to find God in illness, I wrote a post a while ago on healing and what I wrote then still rings true for me. Except now my health is even more fragile than it was back then. Although we have a diagnosis of sorts - there is still a lot to be investigated and treated and while I wait on that happening I feel like things are getting worse. I am so determined not to let that happen, but in pushing myself to keep going, I'm often making myself ill.
Isaiah 40:29 - "He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless."
2 Corinthians 12:9 - "Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”
Throughout the bible there are so many reminders of God's strength in my weakness but it's so difficult to cling to these. It's so hard to accept my physical weaknesses.
There are a few things that need to happen for me to move forward from where I am right now, some practical, some emotional and some spiritual, some in my control and some out of it. There are a few big ones though, firstly, I need to stop avoiding church and small group. I need to face up to no longer being a student and go to the bank etc. to change my accounts. I need to seek advice on what my options are financially, I need to look at whether full time work is realistic and what things I need to sacrifice in order to stay well if I'm going to work full time. I need to continue working with my GP to try and get to the bottom of everything. I need to let myself cry. All these things need to happen and I need to take the steps to let them. There are ways forward from here and I always have a hope in Jesus, but it's so easy to lose my hope for my life.
How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this?"
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now
"God please take this?"
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now
TTFN x
Laura this post is so honest and heartfelt it near broke my heart. In tough times there are plenty of lines I could give you but when God's a struggle they seem empty - so just know you are loved and hugged and held in prayer x
ReplyDeleteThanks Tan..."this too shall pass". I know God brings us through seasons for a reason, but I am very ready for the spring to come now! x
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