I am a dreamer

I am a dreamer, I am a doer, I am over run, I am tired, I am stressed out. I wish that I could say that things were different in my life right now but they are not. I have been in the same boat for a year and a half and it hasn't been easy. I broke down and cried yesterday and cried some more. I was very much not myself and everyone seemed to notice. 

I cried to my best friend and shared all my woes and the things that lay so heavily on my heart. I cried to my mom and told her all the things that had been bothering me. Neither of those conversations changed my life. Neither one of them was able to take away the stress, the pain, the weariness. 

I have been in many situations in my life and I have been in high stress. I have dealt with things that not everyone does. Does the amount of stress in my life differ from everyone else? Is it any more or any less then the next person? 

To be honest, I can't really tell you. I walked through some very difficult times and God was with me and I didn't feel the stress that I feel now. Does that mean that God is not with me? Does that mean that somehow I have failed in my relationship with God and because of that I am feeling more stress? 

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.  God, I am weary. My shoulders bear the weight of tension it has run me down with pain. 

Did this all occur all of a sudden? No, it has been something that slowly creeps up until you realize that you can't handle it anymore. 

I have tried to be this perfect person and I have known for a while that it wasn't going to happen, that I can't be that perfect person. I can't live up to all the standards of perfection that I ascribe to. I find myself looking at others and feeling like they have things together and I don't. 

The other conversation I had was with God, and He is the one who matters. Who in the end I have to ask myself how did I present myself before God? The thing is I have failed. I want to live the Godly life and be the best example for everyone but I find that I'm not. The question is where do I go from here? 

I'm not so strong. I am weak. Realizing that I am not God and I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing. I can give excuses, pretend that I haven't hurt people, but in the end it's not about me. It's about who I represent. As a Christian I show others who Christ is through me. 

I'm not a perfect Christian, there was a time when I thought it was and I thought I had it all together but what I realized is that I was a judge. I was blind to what God had brought me through and only saw others wrongs. 

This failure that I feel has opened my eyes to see some great things. It is that God is a loving and merciful God. He will hold us when we fail and fall. God is also a just God and will stand by what His word says. Do I trust that I am saved and will go to heaven? Acts 2:21 And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That is a yes. The question is what will I do with the time I've been given until I get there? 

How much am I worth?

If you didn't know, then I will tell you now, I was in an abusive marriage. I tell myself that it didn't start out that way, but looking back I see there was something there to start with. I felt alone and abandoned in a room full of people. There was so much pain that I pushed it down, ate it away, and let my life go with the flow. There were days when I would cry, but no one outside of my house would see it happen. I hid myself from the world, I was so beaten down with words that I felt I had lost all value.
Value, it is different than other things. You can lose your house, your car, your eyesight, or a limb; it still does not give you value. Value is in our very soul, it helps us to see ourselves as God sees us.

"Since You are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life." Isaiah 43:4 NIV

The first time I read this verse I was in a better place, I had already taken my steps to get out of the abusive relationship. I saw myself as thin, even good looking to a degree. I still questioned myself, how could anyone love me? I may be thin now, but I was fat before, I have 2 kids and stretch marks. I felt discarded, used up, and worthless. I could talk myself up a good game on the outside, but on the inside I was still trying to cover the pain, fill in the knife wounds that words had made to my heart. I was exhausted and tired, working a new job, being mom, and I was in the stairwell at work when God brought this verse back to me. I had read it in my devotions a day or two before and skimmed over it, with not much meaning.
That night in the stairwell I was searching for that love, that value, and I realized it was already there. I am precious, I am honored in His eyes, and He loves me. He loves me so much that He was willing to give others in my place, His Son in my place. This was over a year and ago, and little did I realize that it was just the beginning of my healing.
Now if life worked just the way I wanted it to, I would have been able to move on from there and never heard another word about it. The thing is that I'm a little stubborn (duh), and usually it takes me a little while to get the point. I continued about my life, and though I remembered those words I didn't let them ingrain themselves in my soul. Instead I was driven to my knees recently by sheer exhaustion, realization that I couldn't do it alone anymore.
In as much as I had given my life over to God, I wasn't trusting him to be my partner. I had to face things that no man could walk beside me with, things that were only for me. I didn't want to do it on my own, and I knew God was the only one who could walk beside me. I searched the heart of God to find myself. What I found was someone who had value, someone who's worth was not decided by anyone's perception or judgement. So I can be free to be me, to be the person who God created me to be. I am free to be a geek, a nerd, a mother, a friend, a woman. I hold on to the hope that someday God will give me the desire of my heart, but until then I will stand, with God by my side. This woman knows that she is one of great value and great worth, and while I am free to be me, I am not valueless, I am priceless.