A Journal Entry...

This week I started a new "process" for how I start my quiet time with God. I start by turning on soaking music (I will put my favorite below for you), then I pray and ask God "What would you like for me to read today?", then I wait a moment, and open my bible, then He takes me to the chapter He would like for me to read that day.

This morning I asked God and He took me to 1 Corinthians 13. Wow. Of course Lord. With everything that is going on in the world right now, you want me to read about love, duh. Okay, I hear you God. So as I am reading - and I read two bibles at a time, one is the NLT illustrated study bible and the other is the Joyce Meyer AMP version bible, God starts speaking to me. After I finished reading, I started journaling.

Journal Entry: May 31, 2020

Abba father, I'm tired. I'm stressed. I'm exhausted. I'm hurt. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm pissed. I'm upset. I'm emotional and emotion-less all at the same time. God show me how to express my feelings in a healthy way. Help me to stop suppressing how I really feel. "I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm good"...those are not real feelings. Yet that's my response to everything. Am I lying? or do I just honestly not know how I'm doing because I don't know how to process what I'm feeling? This week has been draining Lord. I don't want to talk to anybody because I legit do not know what's going on with my emotions. I'm tired God. TIRED!

God we need you. We've always needed you. It hurts my heart to see so much hate, violence and injustice. But what can I do? Little ole me, who struggles to process how I truly feel, who stumbles over her words when trying to process externally, who has a fear of not only being rejected, but being misunderstood. God I'm not giving up. I refuse to let satan win. I know that you will help me and I know that you will guide me in how to process things and channel my emotions in a healthy way. Jesus felt sadness. And He felt anger. He felt happiness. He felt empathetic. He felt scared. He felt abandoned. He felt many if not all of the feelings I've felt. My prayer is that I will look to Jesus as my example for how to feel and process things (minus flipping tables :))

Daddy, I pray for this world. The enemy is roaming around...his minions are terrorizing people. There's so much sin and hate in the world. People don't even know what's right and what's wrong anymore. They have lost their morals, their values...their hope! When things don't go their way, instead of trusting in you, they look to this world to satisfy them and fill their voids. No matter what happens here on earth or in my own life, I will never turn my back on you Lord. I will never stop loving your people and I refuse to let satan trick me into thinking otherwise like he did before for so many years. God I've repented before and I will repent again. I will keep repenting for it, as long as I live. I apologize for allowing my past experiences and interactions with people to make me think it was okay to hate anyone. There is no justification for it. 1 Corinthians 13 is very clear. LOVE is the greatest commandment of all. It's the most important one.

I thank you Lord for being patient with me and for never giving up on me. I will continue to pray for this world. Although I may never see world peace in my 100+ years here on earth, I pray that I won't allow the world to steal MY peace. I love you so much daddy and I pray for all the lost souls here on earth. All the people who try to justify hating someone because they look different. Regardless of what we've been through, we must choose to love others...to love EVERYONE. Doesn't say we have to like them (LOL), but we must love them and show them the love that Christ has shown us, believer or not.

Scriptures to meditate on:

Ephesians 6:12

1 Corinthians 13 (whole chapter)

Ephesians 4:26

Romans 12:2

1 John 4:19-21

Spend some time soaking in God's love.