Do you want to get better?

As I was walking out the door my counsellor asked me this question.

"Do you want to get better?"

It came out of the conversation we'd been having about self-care (ie looking after myself).  [Not something that I'm good at].  I'm realising more and more that so many of my thoughts, feelings and actions are related.

I don't take time to look after myself because I think that doing stuff for others is more important.  More important to serve God.  More important to help others.

Indeed these are fruits of the gospel: seeking to serve God and work for His glory and not my own, and also being other-person-centred rather than self-centred and self-seeking. But I think that my problem is that I've come to these actions by the wrong pathway.  I act in this way because I am of the opinion that I am worthless.  Without value.

This is a lie.  I am valuable because God made me.  I am valuable because God made me in his image.  I am valuable because God thought I was worth sending Jesus to die in my place.  I am valuable because I am an adopted child of God.  I do not need to perform stuff in order to be valuable.  Being able to do work and do good things doesn't make me any more or less valuable.  This is totally opposite to so much of what our world says to us.  But it is true because it is what God says.  Please pray that I would believe it.

Please pray that I would have both right actions and right motivations.  That my service to God and others would be motivated out of gospel generosity: being so thankful at what God has done for me in Christ and so secure in knowledge of the grace of God that saves me, not my own works.

the land of black

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder since July.  It was good to write it down, but I wasn't convinced about sharing it with the "world." But given that I just spoke at church sharing this sort of stuff with everyone, I suppose that there may not be harm in doing this now...

Today hasn't been a great day.  Well neither have the past few days.  Not that this is something new for me.

I feel like everything around me screams that I'm a failure.  Dishes not done.  Bible not read.  Gift not bestowed.  Emails not written.  People not phoned.  A look.  A sigh.  The absence of a greeting.  Though these things might not be in words they speak to me.  They tell me not just that I've failed, but that I am a failure.


Some of it I've tried to counter.  Tried to challenge these negative thoughts as I've been taught to.  But they've still been winning.  So then I feel more like a failure cos I've failed even to challenge the thoughts successfully.


I did an activity the other week which uses the "6 thinking hats".  This has helped me to articulate that I'm always wearing a black hat when it comes to my view of myself.  The hat is so black that it even keeps out other "white" and "yellow" thoughts.  Negative thoughts only.

Return to blogging?

Maybe just for today.

At the moment I find it hard to create time for myself to do anything, even sleep...