What a mighty God we serve!

What a mighty God we serve,
What a mighty God we serve,
Angels bow before Him,
Heaven and Earth adore Him,
What a mighty God we serve!!

I love this old song that my kids in my class used to sing! It is how I feel right now. I cannot even begin to tell you the transformation that is going on in my heart! It is a little scary, to leave to old scary messed up way of thinking, but the feeling of freedom really out ways that is so many ways!

Since the end of February I have been seeing a wonderful counselor from our church and he is really helping me see that my thoughts are based on my emotions, based on feelings and fears that are deep-rooted from my past, but not real and not helping me be my best person. The first thing we discussed and I have been set free from, is gaining the approval from others. Not only that though, but basing how I feel on how I THOUGHT someone felt about me. IE: If I did not hear back from you after leaving you a message then I automatically went to the bad awful place that you did not like me, thought I was stupid, I said something that hurt you and you were never going to talk to me again. Not only was I judging myself through their eyes, but I had to have their approval to feel good about myself and because my fear of rejection was so high I had to control the situation so that they would like me. Wow! Just writing that I realize how incredulous that is. But it is how I thought, and I allowed myself to go there because of all the times I was hurt growing up. Well Jeff has helped me evaluate my feelings and look at them to see if they are grounded in truth and are logical or are they based on emotion and completely wrong. For a couple of weeks I did this and realized how MUCH I went there. I went there all the time, many times a day. And when I did, I would obsess over it and not be the productive mom and wife God has called me to be. I also realized I was judging myself not just with my friends, but In every area of my life. I had to be this all together perfect person or no one was going to like me. That my works were who I was, not my actions or love. That I better have a clean house or people are going to think I am not a good wife, my kids better look nice or I am not a good mom. Do you know how exhausting this was, I did not want to do any ting because the expectations that I had for myself were unrealistic.

Slowly without me even knowing it, the feelings went away!!! For the first time as long as I can remember, I went to bed with a smile on face, I was excited to face the next day. I viewed my children as blessings, not something else I had to attain to. Right now I can say I don't fight these feelings anymore, but I don't know what the future will look like, but I do know what the truth is, I have the tools to fight it and I have the Lord as my Savior. And that is all I need.

Thank you for allowing me to share these thoughts, I know that I am not alone in this, and I pray for anyone held captive by these thoughts, because it is exactly what Satan wants from us so we can keep from being our best self, the self God designed us to be.