Feeling weak

I've recently begun doing the Experiencing God bible study...again.  This will be the 3rd time, but each time I've done it, I've gotten so much out of it and so much that I didn't catch before.  And it's always so timely.  God's just always amazing like that.  Lately (meaning almost to over a year now) I've been feeling so defeated, so low.  No matter how hard I try I can't seem to get myself back to where I want to be: not financially, not emotionally, not physically, not spiritually.  And no amount of perseverance seems to be helping.  I've wondered if it's time to seek professional help, as the more I can't get out of this funk.  I've spent months crying out to God.  And well, just crying and beating myself up.  "There must be something wrong with me."  "My faith must not be strong enough."  "I must be outside of His plan for me, because I just don't feel Him."  "Why can't He answer my cry?  Show me what to do?"  "Why does it feel that the more I ask for help, the quieter it gets from Him?"  "Why does satan keep whispering lies even when I pray?  I feel like I say, 'Get Behind me!' everyday."  I've reached a point that although I know God can use me, maybe He's just decided not to anymore because I'm so blech.  (very technical term for how I'm feeling)  :)

It's not that at any point I've thought God has left me or that He isn't there.  I know He is.  I see it everyday.  I can still find blessings.  But I just feel unusable.  Then today, He sent me a line to remind me.

"If you feel weak, limited, or ordinary, you are the best material through which God works." (Blackaby; Experiencing God p. 28)

Lord, you know how weak I feel.  I feel most of the time that I can't even hold up my head anymore.  Limited is an understatement and I am less than ordinary.  But according to You, that makes me the best material through which You work.  You didn't use Moses or Gideon or Ruth or even Mary during times when they felt on top of the world.  You used them when they felt like they couldn't go on.  The sadness, the embarrassment, life had just gotten to be too much for them.  So I walk in faith today, Abba.  I pray that you are bringing me to where you need to be able to use me.  Use me, Lord, as You will, but please never leave my side, nor take Your strength.  I don't live in my own, Lord.  I don't have any of my own.  Lord, when I look at my life I don't see any way any part of it can work out in a positive way, but yet at the end of each day, You have gotten me through.  I know that it's Your strength, Abba, it has to be.  Thank you for hearing my cry.  Thank you for whatever it is You have planned.  Thank you for what you are doing in my life.  May it bring honor, glory and praise to you and may I experience You on the way.  Amen.

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I've been continuing to pray on and listen to 1 Corinthians 13.  I even bookmarked a reading of it I found on YouTube.  (I can't afford an audio bible; don't know why I never thought to check on there.  I love to listen to the scriptures being read aloud when I'm sick or my heart is hurting or sometimes just as I'm working on something else.)  I've also been reading other things - devotionals, dig deeper scriptures, etc.  Today I came across a Proverbs 31 Ministries devotional.  It's about this woman who in high school someone gave her the nickname "hips" because of her body shape.  That then became a label for how she really saw herself.  She proceeds with how she has given herself many other labels over the years (as have others), some true, some not.  She then goes on to talk about the fact that only in the book of John is John referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  She states that although we have no idea where that label came from, we make the assumption that it probably came out of the sibling-style rivalry of the disciples believing that John was loved more.  But again, that is just conjecture.  She comments that what if he gave himself that title? And also, it doesn't say "the disciple Jesus loved more," just "the disciple Jesus loved". What if we each took on and accepted that title?  How would that change our lives?  How would see ourselves then?  After pondering this for a moment, I realized "that Jesus loved" is not the part I have a hard time with.  I have absolutely NO doubt that Jesus loves me, and not just loves me, but loves me abundantly, overwhelmingly, unconditionally.  I don't completely understand why He would want to many times, but I don't doubt that He does.  I realized I have a problem with "the disciple."  As I sat thinking about how far I am from where I want to be for God and how many times I have failed Him or let Him down, I realized that I find it hard to consider myself a disciple.  He spoke to my heart immediately because as I was thinking that, immediately I heard, "They weren't perfect either.  They made mistakes too."  And then I thought of Peter, poor Peter whose mistakes were made so public.  Or Thomas.  And Judas.  I don't have to be perfect to be a disciple.  I think that's where God is leading me to look now.  It's about love again.  It all comes back to love.  I need to stick with learning to love myself with that 1 Corinthians love.  And I need to love God with it because it never fails, but always perseveres, hopes, trusts.  And in that love I need to believe that I am Michele, the disciple Jesus loves.

Love is...

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about 1 Corinthians 13.  Most people, even non-Christians or church goers have heard the words and think it's "a nice sentiment."  And when we hear sermons or teachings on it, it is used to talk about love with significant others, children, family, even friends and often about God's love for us.  But the thought that came to me in the middle of the night was, " Do we look at this verse in comparison with our love for Him?  For ourselves?"  Haven't we been instructed by Jesus to love our neighbors as ourselves?  (although in my case I've always thought His admonition was commutative and feel Him saying, "Do your show yourself the amount of love you show your neighbor?"  That's another entry altogether!)  This is something I'm going to pray and blog about over the next few days.  Here are the verses I'll be praying upon and considering what He's laid on my heart:

And yet I will show you the most excellent way.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.