What are your struggles? Repeat the answer you just thought in your head. Now pretend your in public and someone asks you the same question out loud. Chances are incredibly high the answer you verbalize, to them, is not the same answer you thought in your head. Why is this?
I personally have shared some of my struggles with my readers in my blogs. For those of you who are reading my blog for the first time (yayayayay!!!) I’ll give a quick background summary.
I have had a constant chronic headache, exhaustion, muscle fatigue, tightness, tingling, brain fog, and anxiety everyday for almost five years. My life drastically changed one night while sleeping in the mountains at a family reunion. I instantly knew mentally and physically something was wrong.
My journey has led me to several doctors, CT scans, and MRI’s all resulting the same… Normal. No one ever wants to hear bad news, but I got to the point where even if it was bad news at least we had answers. Fast forward from being a guinea pig refusing to stay on the different forms of medication pushed on me, making my symptoms worse, to the miracle of a friend from church seeing my story on Facebook.
Her taking a chance and reaching out to me truly saved my life. Her husband has been through everything I have and then some battling these symptoms for six years. Through a friend who reached out to them they found this doctor out of state, who has had much success in treating chronic pain. He did a couple of Lyme tests to them and myself resulting in the same outcome, POSITIVE.
Bad news… NOPE! FINALLY ANSWERS! Years of worrying if others think I’m crazy after every normal result. Relief feels so good! We have started on his treatment which has truly helped lessen my symptoms, mentally and physically. However, little is known about Lyme. (*Side note* I will touch more on this later when I write the Captive Thoughts Part 2 post)
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
Colossians 3:1-17 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/col.3.1-17.NASB1995
Why are we scared to voice our struggles to others? We have feelings in our hearts of doubt, fear, hopelessness, etc… Brought on by the thoughts of; what if people laugh at me? What if they think I’m pathetic? What if they think I’m just saying this for attention?
Those thoughts are all worldly. The passage above from Collosians tells us to put aside abusive speech. This includes the thoughts in our heads. God wants us to let the peace of Christ fill our hearts. Negative emotions and thought are normal, but do not let them over come us. If we are full of Christ’s love and His word we can fight off those negative thoughts, not allowing them to take us captive.
Faith Strengthened Moms 