The Biggest Lie in My Life (This Is My Open Mic)

A beautiful sister in the Lord sent me this (Francis Chan) video this morning. No doubt God used her in my time of need. This morning started out poorly. Almost immediately, I woke up stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed with the days events. My mind began racing with all the things I wanted to get done. Before breakfast was over, I found myself outside on the front porch in tears because I already couldn't stand the day. I was overwhelmed, frustrated, and stressed.
After pulling myself together, I walked back in, head down, and made my way into the computer room without talking to anyone. I opened my email as a way to escape life for a moment and found that Francis Chan video. The video was 40 minutes long which seemed like a lifetime in a mom's life, but I found myself clicking on it and listening to the WHOLE thing. And I'm glad I did because it changed my day. What God revealed to me was pretty interesting.
You see, I'm a busy, often overwhelmed and stressed, mom of two precious boys. Lucky for me, both of my boys nap at the same time in the afternoon. However, I'm so emotionally and mentally drained from the day that by 2 PM (their nap time) all I can imagine doing is staring at a wall. And that's usually what I do, kind of. I find something that's completely mindless and do it until the boys wake up. Sometimes it's surfing the web, reading news websites, or watching TV. The spirit inside me tells me to pray or read my Bible, but the human in me says, "God understands you're busy, do what you want. Besides, praying and reading is too difficult and you're too tired." You're too tired. I'm too tired.
That's the biggest lie in my life right now. Yes, God understands. He understands I'm a busy mom of two. He understands I'm tired. He understands I'm stressed, overwhelmed, and drained. But, I've been trying to get over on God. You see, I'm too tired at night to read my Bible, but I'm not too tired to go for a run. I'm too tired to pray during nap time, but I'm not too tired to surf the web. It's a lie. I'm NOT too tired to do those things, it's just that I haven't made them a priority. If I'm honest, I don't want to do those things. Reading and praying are not what I want to do with my precious 'down time.' What God showed me through that video is that the biggest lie in my life is that I'm too tired for Him. And I justify it by saying, "God understands my situation." I've believed my own lie.
What now? Well, here is my open mic. I am confessing my lies to you. Pray for me. Pray for more of a desire for God. Pray I use my down time to seek His face. Pray for wisdom.
I'm so grateful to have beautiful sisters in the Lord who listen to the spirit in them. I probably would have continued to go on through my days lying to myself, telling myself that I was too busy for God, but it was okay because He understood.
Watch the video. Confront the lies in your life. And use an open mic to confess it. Then, ask people to pray for you. I'll pray for you. After all, we're in this together and I'm no more or less a sinner than everyone else.

A Beautiful Mess

Hi my name is Gina. At the urge of my beautiful sister in law, I started reading this book called "Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life." I was hesitant to read it at first because immediately upon receiving this book, I thought, "my life is fine. I don't need this book" I was wrong. After reading only the first few chapters, I decided to share something with you. I'm sharing it because I want you to know you aren't alone in hiding a messy life. We all do it. We all hide our imperfections. And the first step in healing that messy part of your life is realizing what's messy. Sometimes it's something we don't even realize until God reveals it to us.

So, here I go. And please know this is totally and completely uncomfortable for me, but if it helps someone, than it's worth it.

My name is Gina and I'm a mess. My skeletons? I had an eating disorder. And I'm afraid to this day it'll creep back up on me. I battle it daily. I'm like an addict. It's always there. I had sex before I was married and it messed me up. I had sex because it made me feel pretty and I thought it would make the guys I was having sex with like me more. I view sex as everything other than what God intended it for. Because of my sexual past, I feel gross about myself. After six years of marriage, I still don't understand why my husband loves me so much after what I did with guys other than him. I'm still recovering. I drank way too much because I thought it made me look cool and it helped me forget the depression I was battling in college. The morning afters were the worst. I contemplated suicide every time. I've held knives to my wrists. Instead of killing myself, I binge ate and had sex. I smoked pot because my boyfriend dealt it. There were times I tried to smoke and drink myself to death because I didn't want to face the next morning and that horrible, empty feeling.

Those are my skeletons. I've given them over to God and literally said, "here, take this mess, and make it beautiful." He's currently working on it.

Hi, my name is Gina and I am a Beautiful Mess.