In the Midst of Praise

In the Midst of Praise
May 1, 2011

1”In that day you will say:
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
2Surely God is my salvation:
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and
my song;
He will become my salvation.”
3With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.

4In that day you will say:
Give thanks to the Lord, call on his
name;
make known among the nations what he
has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
5Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious
things;
let this be known to all the world.
5Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of
Zion,
for great is the Holy one of Israel
among us.
Isaiah 12:1-6

I couldn’t help but include this whole chapter, maybe the shortest in the book of Isaiah. Yesterday when I was feeling down, and asked God to help me find something in the Bible that would help me, this is the first verse to which I opened.
After that, I thought, well, what’s the best praise song I know, and the Doxology came to mind. So, I sang it until I felt better.

Tonight’s God’s Tug will be short, since this was a lesson I’ve learned in the past and I have a feeling God will teach it to me until I know it by heart.

I’ve become somewhat lax about posting God’s Tug – I apologize for that. Not just for the fact that others (many I don’t know) receive courage and inspiration from it, but also because God has directed me to do these writings.(and we all know what happened to Jonah when he ignored God) ;~D

God’s blessings upon you, your family, and your furkids (if you have any).

Michelle Rose

Empathy or Sympathy?

"...I'm holding out my only candle, but it's so little light to find my way..." ~Jackson Browne, "Song for Adam"~

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Ecclesiastes 7:3 "Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." (KJV)

I don't think by this verse, the writer (Solomon?) meant that I am to be sad all the time. My thoughts are that he meant that when I am sad, I empathize with others, that I can feel their pain. Ok, this is just my interpretation, so I could be wrong.

For some reason I'm very deeply affected by several events (among others) going on right now which are not in the direct circle of my life. One is the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti. The other is that one of my friends is doing what he can to find a home for his mother's cat a home. His mother recently died and he's unemployed. The two events have nothing to do with each other, but for some reason I feel them deeply.

I have the disability of manic-depression and one of the characteristics of it is that I have the ability to see more than one side of a situation. I've written about it before - it's like a heightened perception. I have always perceived others' sadness or pain as a part of myself - I can feel it. I feel especially powerless since I can only pray for the situation in Haiti. But, for my friend's cat, I've been checking as many resources as I know of to see about finding the kitty a home.

Today, I think my lesson is that I can only do what I can. If all I can do is pray, then this is the job God has given me to do. I accept that.

Michelle Rose

Who's Really in Charge Here?

...yes, she might, but I'll bet God whispers them in her ear.

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Ok, I'm back after a few days of struggling with depression and new realizations. Today, in my morning reading in Charles Stanley's meditation, I found a phrase that fits my life so well. The verse for today was Philippians 4:5, but it's impossible not to read it from verses 4:4-7, then skip down and read Phil. 4:13, 19. The title of today's morning meditation was, "A Reason for Confidence." The sentence I found was, "And sometimes false guilt creeps into our minds and robs of assurance." BINGO!

So, just when I least expected it, I found the answer for a reason for the way I've been feeling much of my life. The question now has an answer. Thank you God! It's true, that the answers are in the Bible.

Today I went out and joined a gym that I'd been a member of before when my insurance company paid for it (but I never went). The monthly membership fee is low enough that I can afford it, even if I don't find work right away. The gym will be my place to be good to myself - an escape for me - a mini-vacation each day I go. I can start working on my health matters.

The other day, with everything that happened, I was so upset that I couldn't stay a member at the other gym I'd joined. AHA! God always has a plan. God knew, and so did I in my heart, I couldn't afford that gym. Ok, ok, I admit it, God's smarter than I am. He knows what's better for my life than I do. I think that's a very good reason to let Him guide me through life and follow what He wants me to do. (Looks up and says, "Ok, I hear you God. I'm listening.")

Michelle Rose

Those %#%@#^#^ Annoying Email

Ok, walk along this fence to a place where chain email disappears. ;-)

photobucket image - bokeh

Ok, this is going to sound a little angry, but it's a "rant" I need to air.

I get them all the time, those email that say "Send this out to 20 people in the next 10 minutes and something amazing will happen to you." I have to scroll down past tons of addresses to see the actual message. Sometimes I send them on because I like the message and think my friends will enjoy them, too. But I've gotten a bit rebellious in not being guilted into sending them on or by forwarding them. I delete all the email addresses. Yes, it is a pain in the hiney to delete them, but I backspace to do it. And, when I send out an email to my friends, I hit reply and send it to one person in the "to" box and then blind copy the rest.

Often, I've deleted them, just because I get tired of the dire consequences they predict if I don't. OH LOOK! I'm still here. I don't mean to insult any of my friends who sends me these email, as I do enjoy them for the most part. Of course, I get in the habit of sending these annoying chain email, too, but I do my best not to make a constant practice of it. Also, I mention in the email I send, there's no stipulation for sending them on. And most times it's not the email content itself that I mind, but the "guilt" message it contains.

When I sent one to my friends, I only picked a few, and delete all the time limits and consequences of not sending the email to anyone else. I want my friends to enjoy what I send, knowing that I sent it to them because I care for them, not them sending the email to countless millions of people.

Well, I guess chain mail has been around for a long time. At least with email, it doesn't cost postage, like it once did. ;-)

Caging a Green-eyed Monster

Image from photobucket.com

Like many people, I go through life with an assortment of mythical animals and monsters perched on and looking over my shoulders. The one that produced the widest variety of raging emotions was the green-eyed monster. It appeared and dugs its claws into my heart when I had the least or lost what I hadn't wanted to give up. You know the one I'm talking about - jealousy. It produced anger, rage, sadness, depression, and a host of other negative emotions and feelings that ripped me up inside and I didn't know how to put back in its cage. I fueled the beast's nastiness within me by looking outside myself at what others had and I didn't. Oh, it just loved to make mincemeat of me, shredding my emotions to the point where I didn't care about life or what I did have. And the strange part is that I wasn't angry at the monster, I was angry at God. I whined and moaned, "Why don't I have this (thing or person) in my life? Why do you have to put me through such a difficult time when that evil person is coasting through life?" I was almost turning myself inside out with jealousy.

I don't know when I began to fuel this emotion less, by looking at what others had and being genuinely happy for them. I also looked at what I had and was truly grateful for God showing His blessings and love on me. Like so many negative emotions, jealousy does nothing to build me up, but happiness for another person's blessings, blesses me and the other person.

Well, sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? How can I be happy for someone who has something I want but don't have. That's the way caging the green-eyed monster works. It's how God wants us to feel toward others. I believe that when the Jews were wandering through the desert for over 40 years, they looked at what they didn't have. They were jealous of those who had homes, water, crops... Did God immediately give them these things? No, but he got very angry at them. God looks at my attitude toward others, whether I'm blessed by others' blessings.

So, while the green-eyed monster shows his face occasionally, I don't buy into his game. Or another way of saying it is that I don't co-sign his baloney. One of my friends calls her ex-boyfriend a "lying sack of baloney," but isn't that what the evil one is, disguised as an emotion?