This blog is partly about me encouraging myself to be more vulnerable and less guarded as if I was speaking with a friend face to face. This week I have struggled with many things and drank lots of tea! Lets start with the tea. It has been quite cool first thing in the mornings, Fall is definitely here!! Yay! Don’t get me wrong I love the heat of Summer, just not a huge fan of the humidity that comes with it. Fall means that its more acceptable to eat some of my favourite foods and drink hot tea all day, if I would like without judgement. This week has seen me taking full advantage of the change in seasons by drinking Black Blackcurrant tea, Hibiscus Green Tea, Peppermint Tea, Rooibos tea, regular Green tea and of course the well known British PG tips. I am normally really good at just drinking water throughout the day after my daily cuppa first thing, but this week maybe because I have been struggling, a cup of tea I was hoping would be the answer and where I found comfort. Unfortunately I enjoyed the tea but my negative thoughts just kept coming. It started with our work for the week. I have been working with the guys this week and always find myself feeling inferior in my capabilities and knowledge. I have a heart to help wherever is needed, but know construction work is not normally my gifting and probably never will be. A little voice tells me I cant do the work I have been asked to do and I end up asking too many questions and feeling like I am being a nuisance. T always assures me that is not the case. There is a song we sing together as a group before we start our day. Its an old Hymn by S.C Kirk written in 1912 called Our Best:
“Hear ye the Master’s call, “Give Me thy best!”
For, be it great or small, that is His test.
Do then the best you can, not for reward,
Not for the praise of men, but for the Lord.
Refrain:
Every work for Jesus will be blest,
But He asks from everyone his best.
Our talents may be few, these may be small,
But unto Him is due our best, our all.”
I used to think it was cheesy to sing this song, but I understand the importance of it now so many projects later. Its a reminder that what I am doing may seem insignificant and very often my talents seem few but I am still to do my best for Jesus and with a good attitude. I haven’t been a shining example of that this week. I wish I could blame it on hormones, I know what my weaknesses are and Satan often loves to try and get his clutches on my mind first, because for me that is where it all starts and the spiraling downwards goes from there. The anger and bitterness starts to creep in over things I have no control over, I am negative about how I see myself, start to feel I have no purpose, read and consume myself with the goings on of the world and find sleeping through the night is not happening like I would like. I know I am being impatient over certain circumstances in our life, I feel lonely at times- full time RVing as I might have mentioned is not always endless fun and games. I miss consistent community and regular time with my girlfriends. I dislike we are missing important events and milestones with those we love. It may not make sense to many what we are doing in this season of our lives and sometimes if I am honest It doesn’t make sense to me either, but I know God has a purpose and a plan. So, you might ask, how do I get out of the funk I find myself in? By Gods grace and Gods grace alone. He knows my heart, He knows my weaknesses and loves me enough to convict my heart and mind that I am on the wrong path and to come back. I am so thankful those days/weeks in the darkness of depression are no more. I can now recognize what my negative thoughts really are…all lies that Satan would love to use but I cant and wont allow anymore.
Here’s a scripture I have placed in our little home until I feel it needs to be changed to help remind me to be patient and not to be ugly in the things that I cant understand in this season.
Also I wanted to share a recipe that T and I enjoyed and ate for three days. It was inspired by a post I saw on Instagram but I didn’t want to sign up for the persons email list so found something similar on the World Wide Web. We substituted a couple of the ingredients with what we had on hand. We used two cans of mild Rotel, chicken broth as it needed to be used first in our pantry and left out the brown sugar. When cooking we followed all the instructions for an Instapot except we actually used the soup setting to finish after sautéing with brown rice and it came out fine.
https://thenaturalnurturer.com/one-pot-unstuffed-cabbage-soup/
