I started my day with prayer and meditation and the day started off ok, but slowly the painful reminders and grief kicked in. I started really missing my sponsor. At first I tried to ignore the feelings and kept pushing through the day. As I attempted to suppress the hurt, I grew irritable and frustrated. Rather than take a time out, like I suggest to my sponsees, I kept going. Eventually I snapped at my daughters over uncompleted chores and blamed them for causing us to leave later than I wanted. What went wrong? My heart was heavy yet I tried to pretend all was ok. I have an amazing support team, but I didn’t reach out or share my struggle until step study. Somehow the enemy knows when to attack and finds me at the moments that I’m most vulnerable. For some reason these usually occur when I’m about to step outside of my comfort zone in leading.
Tonight, I was leading the sponsor training for the first time. I really didn’t even want to look at my notes since my sponsor was the one who helped me prepare for this. Everything in there was a reminder of who she was. I showed up to step study & I tried to forget that I had a rough afternoon, but as the devotional was being read, I felt guilt and shame. How was I supposed to train these women on sponsorship, when I needed to apologize (make amends) with my daughters?
Rather than let the enemy rob me of the rest of my joy and peace, I took a moment to go apologize to my girls, hug them, and reassure them of my love. Of course they were forgiving and my oldest even knew I wasn’t upset at her but was really sad and missing my friend.
I then told God how I felt and asked him to speak through me tonight. I had nothing left to give and was relying on his strength. As always He was faithful and just. I was able to be transparent with my feelings and struggles throughout the training. I’m beginning to realize that even in the midst of the trials of life, I can turn over all my cares and worries to Him. He is so faithful. His love overrides all fear and discouragement, and I was able to share some of the amazing nuggets of truth that my sponsor shared with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment