Happy Sabbath!
I want to thank God for helping me through this week,
keeping my family and I safe, and allowing me to attend church today. I had a challenging week but did make
it through.
Sunday my son was sick (vomiting, fever, bm accidents). Monday I was under prepared at work and
felt so low but God kept me. Tuesday I opted last minute to work from home and
stressed myself out so much about preparing for a training and later realized
it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I am thankful that I made that decision
because it rained heavily that day and people were drive erratically out
there.
Wednesday, the school called me about my son coughing bad
and didn’t have the medication I thought was sent in with him but didn’t make
it in. He was able to stay without
further issue and I brought the medicine to the school the same day. This was only possible because God had
it that I made my Tuesday a longer work day and shortened my Wednesday by
nearly 3 hours.
Thursday and Friday I chose to work from home and not go to
the office. I was able to get a
good amount of work done, but I will say that Friday I was so stressed out
about my performance earlier in the week that I woke up around 2am and could
not go back to sleep. I decided to
get on my computer and work until 8am or so before getting my son up and taking
him over to my parents and continuing on to my appointments. I watched a few Youtube videos because
the link to the shows I wanted to watch on Xfinity (I’m a guest user thanks to
my sister who gave me an account), refused to load what I wanted since I was
not watching from a “home” location.
My sister lives two complex/courts away so I could walk or drive over
there and sit in my car, but that is just too much. Since I’m not at a “home” location, Xfinity put a block on
certain episodes for 1-2 weeks and removes the blocks once a new episode comes
up. Well with Youtube, I watched
one of the people I’m subscribed to and she is a very sweet person (has a
natural hair and fitness/grwm channel). She struggles with anxiety too and she talked about her
challenges with school/life while putting on her make up and fixing her
hair. At one point, she played an
audio clip in the background that sounded like the pastor to this Adventist
university that sometimes gets airplay on 3abn, but I’m not sure but it was
something I definitely did not expect.
This guy talked about anxiety, which seemed to be my theme throughout
the entire week and his message was very encouraging.
If satan knows a weakness, he will play on it as much as
possible. I have a job that has no
room for anxiety, yet I have it and have been here for more than a year. I have a form of social anxiety, a fear
of being perceived as incompetent and inferior, but despite this, I know that God
wants me to be here. I know I have
been able to get stuff done because women, “we get stuff done!” if you know
what I’m saying. When I met with
clients at the mental health clinic I interned at last year, I saw how anxiety
paralyzed them. I know how it
paralyzed me. What makes things worse is when satan pushes people to do unkind
things to people who are not confident in themselves (and he will do it). He has pushed people to say unkind
words about me and others in my presence.
The Lord was taunted and abused and yet He overcame. He gives me the power to overcome as
well and so I will continue to search for that power and go out each day facing
my fears.
Today I went to church and I am thankful for this because
when I received the text from the children’s Sabbath school teacher that she
was going to be occupied with the Pathfinders, the next thoughts in my mind
were either to stay home or skip Sabbath school entirely. I lay in my bed and looked at some YouVersion
plans and although I didn’t start one, I looked at one that talked about
fasting and asked what the reader would commit to the Lord. I thought about the program I watched
on 3abn last night telling viewers to turn away their feet/my feet from doing
my own thing and look at the Sabbath as a delight and the more I thought about
it, the more I knew that if I stayed home, my son would be glued to his tablet
watching ABC videos or Bangladeshi children’s songs and I would not be giving
the Lord my full focus, my time, or my best. By going to church, at least this stage in my life, it is
taking more effort, and I want to give more to God. I also want my son to have a good routine and to surround
myself with people who are going to hold me accountable, because I won’t
consistently do it for myself.
Today was an induction ceremony for Pathfinders and this is
the second time I have been able to witness it at this particular church. I saw something of this nature at the
very first church I went to, the one I was baptized at and I knew many Pathfinders
participants at a neighboring church in another part of the city. I want my son
to be in this, I want to be a child again myself so I could be in this myself! I can’t help but think when I started
going to the first church and potlucks, how smart and wonderful the youth
were. You could ask them any
question and they could answer it.
Their parents were professionals, business owners, doctors and the
people my age were finishing up doctorates, owning homes, and expats of various
foreign countries. I was 23 years
old at the time. At 33, I may be a
professional, but I have a long way to get to where they were in their
20’s. I asked a member about the
program and they are looking for a leader. There are enough children to start, despite what another person
told me last week.
I was the AY leader at my previous church and my anxiety did
not help much. I was also under
heavy attack by satan and ended up stepping down right after a major ceremony
we had. It was anxiety tied up
with a long-term dispute I was having with a former boyfriend (board member and
AY leader assistant), his ex girlfriend, and other random things satan was
trying to throw at me. I also know how heavily invested I will become and might
neglect my duties as a mother to my son.
It only takes a second of distraction for someone to come up and try
something inappropriate with your child and I don’t care what place it is at
(church, the grocery store, at a family’s house), I don’t have time for that.
I will see where the Lord leads me. I know what I prayed for and how the
Lord answered before. Despite how
I feel about walking into the unknown, I know the Lord would not steer me
wrong. God is good to me. He has been good to my son. My son fell on Thursday from one
kitchen chair and hit his head against an adjacent kitchen chair and got a
small cut on the side of his head.
It could have been worse. I
turned around just in time to witness it so it could have happened and I would
not know why he was crying or how to fix it. On Wednesday, I was on the first train out and was forced
off the train with everyone else after hearing that there was an accident
ahead. I later learned on the news
that the first train coming from the opposite direction hit a car that was on
the tracks. Thankfully the person
was not killed at the site and transported to the hospital to recover. If it was not for God, it could have
been my train that hit that car.
There are no seat belts on the train and people would have been thrown
in all directions and hurt. I
smelled something burning close by the train. The police and fire trucks rushed into the parking lot where
we were standing thinking the accident was where we were, saying this was the
site. It may very well have been
and who knows, the car could have exploded and been close by.
I thank God that no one else was hurt. I thank God that I am
home today with my son. I thank
God for just being who He is. I
thank Him for the music I listened to this week, the videos with unexpectedly
encouraging messages because that one channel, I didn’t know she was a
Christian and I didn’t know she was going to play the audio that she did. Another person I am subscribed to also
talked about her faith and I’ve been subscribed to her for a long time too and
didn’t know. I always admired her
for her videos on organizing things, filofax planners and lilly Pulitzer style
ideas. It is good that people are
sharing like this. That’s why it
is important to share your testimonies.
Share what the Lord has done for you and it can really make someone else’s
day.
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