Update

Let me start out by saying I want to be a transparent, humble, God fearing, Christ shining, loving through His eyes and with His heart kinda woman. Who I am today is not who I long to be. I know He is working on me and has been since the day of both my physical and spiritual birth. So much has changed and I have overcome so much in my life, especially in the more recent years. I attribute all of what's good to Jesus.

Lately life has been stressful... beyond stressful for me. I felt as if there was something weighing down on me constantly no matter what the circumstances around me. It's probably been a few months of this and it just seemed to get progressively worse. I would seek God.... well at first constantly, then it dwindled until I hit this point where I was wanting to just run. I didn't want to hear him anymore, I was starting to get bitter because I wanted these feelings of stress and hurt and fear taken away. It's been taking a toll on every aspect of my life especially my relationships. I find myself being a person of timidity with so many walls up it's hard to see me. I like it this way a lot of time until I realize it leaves me with few deep and meaningful relationships. I wish so much to be... well myself again. I guess I've actually struggled with being timid and building walls for years now. Honestly, unless you are one of the few people I feel I can open up to, I'm most likely having an anxiety attack as we talk... it really sucks. The anxiety attacks have been too much to deal with lately. I seem to have them way too often... multiple times a day. I've found myself wanting to have a drink or 2 in the evening just to wind down and not feel this weight so heavy on my shoulders. Bad right?! I know the truth so I've been trying so hard to trudge through and not allow myself to fall, but with all this weight baring down and gravity pulling down it was getting really tough. Somewhere in all this I forgot to focus on Jesus. I tired per-say, but sometimes I forget what He did for me because I'm too busy focusing on life and trying to live righteously. I forget that I cannot live a righteous life on my own. I try to do these things for God instead of allowing Him to do these things through me. Ah to see clearly again! I want to share a little of what happened at church today with you. It was during worship when I felt a nudge to lift my hands while singing praise. At first through my pride and bitterness I thought "nope, not gonna do it" Not a few seconds later did I lift my hands in surrender. SWEET SURRENDER! It was beautiful. At that moment I actually physically felt the weight being lifted from me. It was so surreal. I've heard of things like this, but never actually experienced it myself. I've experienced Him taking my burdens away and His Joy and Jesus in general, but never before have I experienced anything physical. It was so amazing and I had such a tough time choking back tears. Praise the Lord, for He is good. My god is good. Our pastor closed with a story from Narnia today which seems fitting here:
"Is he—quite safe?" (Lucy asked about Aslan) "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
So I guess for me I'm going to have to show transparency and stop worrying about hiding my sins and my flaws because for me hiding those things is safe, but definitely not of God.