How

There are wonderful people here in blogland. Amazing and just fantastic!!! it is jawdropping at times to go to a page and see a post that somehow just touches you in a place you long to have reached but could never ask for or express without a blushing selfconsciousness. God is wrestling with me via peoples posts and comments.

I have wanted to make a *glossy finish* cover over reality, for God to always make everything work together for good as it says in Romans chapter 8. God is good all the time, all the time God is good. My problem is I have let these weeds of emotional questioning fester inside and instead of uprooting them tried to hope they would just be removed by spiritual osmosis or something. Fear as a way to deal with the harsh realities of life just became an instinctive response for me internally to manage things. Death will happen, cold reality yes it will. No need to fear it because Jesus died for us and resurrected to give us eternal life, But, He asks us to obey, to believe in a way that seems to go beyond our ability to some extent. Age-old question every generation asks why so much sufering??? why evil??? does God cause us to believe and obey ultimately or do we choose to???

Choice choice choice. Why is it so hard to accept that choice and freedom are His gifts to us as humans??? i am not wanting to make this a selfdespising post in any way shape or fashion. I just am challenged at my root by so much i have read and so much i have gotten from good freinds and caring people. I have the tension inside of the flesh/spirit tug-of-war. Don't we all??? I want with all my heart to love God and love people, and also i want to tell God to just chill and let me do as i please,let me get to things on my own timetable or whatever and i hate that. I have been given the book *tired of trying to measure up* as a resource, is it perfectionism to look at the standard Jesus points to in the Gospels and to be selfcondeming when it isn't reached??? How did peter change from the one who told Jesus He must never go to the cross, the one who denied Him 3 times to being one of the major leaders of the early Church and martyred by being crucified upside down???

I think a major part of why i am so hard on myself is because, again, I have so feared having to face a life threatening illness like cancer which killed my father. Or scared to face what i percieve to be emotional/spiritual/relational challenges. Funny how when some actually happen God seems to give me a peace and confidence from somewhere, like with my heart troubles. I have made so many wonderful connections on here, so scared that by sharing the way i do on here it will make people get annoyed and leave. I have a pattern of self-sabotage i think, afraid to have something reject or abandon me that i really care about and love and so i do it to myself as a protection mechanism. I don't want to continue that pattern. I don't want to lose people or progressive changes i have made and am heading towards. It hurts so bad to feel like I have made so many wrong choices and still deep inside have so much childish ways in me especially in choosing to live as an adult in accepting my freedom and choices to make in that freedom. God please continue to wrestle with me and help me to realize Your love in the most genuine way You can. Help me to learn to not be so hard on myself and to really be able to hear Your voice and to choose to live in response to it. Thank you beyond any words i could ever say for the special people and friends You have given me on here. Help me to love and be loved God. Thank You for letting me cry and feel Your call to feel You.