I’m up again – late at night with the demons the devil sends to plague me: guilt and doubt. By day, it’s distraction and discouragement – via tv and children. Children, because it’s summertime…
Spiritual attacks of the enemy, or maybe it is the mind of flesh, not set on things of the Spirit, encourage alienation in my soul – more precisely, the suspicion of alienation. Abandonment. And comparison. 👈🏾These try to dilute the confirmation of God and His love for me, which He displays in many ways – victory over strife and bad habits (giving up when it looks hard or, losing my temper)…
I look at my oldest, who is at the confusing and trying beginning of many changes, and I realize how hardened I am to spiritual things when it comes to parenting (Exodus 9:12; Ezekiel 36:26; I Samuel 6:6; Exodus 7:3; Hebrews 3:8; Isaiah 6:10; Acts 7:1.) That aspect of me should be called, Jay of Little Faith… Because I don’t know in what other realm I could see my husband and me pouring more (investment) into something (the future and training of our babies) and yet, doubt little or any good will come of it.
In the same way, I struggle to believe in the value of…well, myself – even though God chose and called me. He made me on the sixth day of creation. I can tell other people, but in the case of Jay Jones, It’s hard to keep my very visual mind stayed on the truth: I am like a butterfly 🦋 God made my wings uniquely beautiful, unlike any others. All butterfly wings are magnificent, but they can only be seen by others – especially that is, not by the butterfly. Yet, my mind swerves like a magnet toward the ways that I’m not as good or, might be better than…another butterfly.
It is a battle to keep the wheel straight, my tires on the narrow path, hands at 10 and 2 🕙🕑…still managing to keep my hands light – in the rest of Christ.
My job is to walk up to and through fear – onward, doggedly…fueled and fed by Jesus, believing even when I don’t, and taking one more step toward His good plan and will for my life. Using all He’s given me that I can see; what I don’t yet perceive; and, everything He is curating. I love that word, curate. Its essential quality is: To have been chosen with care for a peculiar reason known and prepared for in advance. On purpose.
God is doing something in me. In you. With purpose…
And His plans for us likely affect others, falling into place necessarily, like dominoes – as we interact with the wider world 🌎 as well as in our more parochial spheres of influence – among our friends and family.
As a writer, it’s true, however it feels late at night, as I’m soaked with anxiety or, as I’m clawing out of my soul to escape the distress of family infighting and my sense of failure as a mom… I know it’s true that God made me and every storyteller, external processor, host and hostess, etc., to touch others. To influence. To encourage. And to confirm that we are not alone, mostly, because God is among us.
As a mom, friend, sister, and writer who is also a Christian – having eternal life and freedom through faith in the name of Jesus Christ – I know another, more important thing: God can be in us, so that we live from and because of Him.
And that’s a million times better. Even at night. Because the dark is not dark to Him. And even during the ducking, dodging (and sometimes, piercings) of arrows by day. Because nothing can be against whosoever God is for… 👈🏾 Pray excuse that grammar.
I haven’t read my Bible in a while. I should do that tomorrow…and work on my screenplay.