God is "gooder" Than You Think..Change The Way You Think

I started running again last week. I think my legs were a bit mad at me, but I persevered. For me running is a way to combat emotion. I know this to be true of myself, yet I just started running again. I have been listening to a podcast in Redding most mornings from Bethel. There is something I have heard the pastor and others say for a few years now, but in these life moments it is truth that I need: God is gooder than you think so change the way you think.

Life has moments and cycles and it sometimes moves from struggle to struggle then to success. I have allowed my mind to go places that my body just could no longer afford it going. The stress I felt internally was mounting no matter what I seemed to pray...maybe because I was begging to get the things I so desperately thought I needed instead of listening to God through scripture and quiet moments. Maybe because life is just stressful right now. Maybe because God is healing parts of me that need it. Who knows, but I allowed it to spin far too out of control.

Two weeks ago I said good bye to Sam and after he left tears just streamed down my face. What would I do today? When will it feel easier to breathe and wake up? When will life not seem so hard? I knew they were tears and life goes on in tears, so I laced up my shoes grabbed my ipod and just ran. The tears only lasted about a minute and I began to feel it--HOPE. For some reason between the endorphins coursing through my body, the words of truth being spoken to in my ears and the Holy Spirit comfort I began to see beyond my circumstances.

HOPE.

I need it and more than that I want to be someone that radiates it and lives it and passes it on. Funnily enough, I need to be connected to the Hope Giver...Jesus. This has been a week or two of allowing God and Jesus to speak to me, to show me things, to embrace me and to not run from the pain of loneliness and unknown and to remember it's just life, full of ups and downs.

I learned some important lessons in these last few months I thought I would share. For me sharing in the blog has been part of my healing and part of my process to feel expressive in this time. May God use these broken moments and life lessons to touch the part in you that needs God's touch. My mom sent me O magazine this month (WHICH MADE ME SO HAPPY!!! THANKS MOM!!!) and one page I love in that magazine is "Things I Know For Sure."

Here are my "Things I Know For Sure" today:

God is good.
God loves each person with a fierce love.
God is active in my life.
I am God's child.
I am staring at another one of God's children each time I look in the face of another...even those that I have been hurt by.
Whether I live it or not He has gifted me and longs for me to live out who He created me to be.
God wants to bring healing in our lives.
God is bringing healing in my life.
God is good.
I need to change the way I think.
I have a hope.
God heals people.
God is not angry.
God is loving.
I am where I am and that is good enough for God.
I struggle.
I am loved.
I am accepted.
I am being changed because God is good.

There have been moments in the last few weeks that have terrified me. I am changing in this experience. I am discovering how I have lived my life for years. I have lived people pleasing and constantly plagued in my mind with "shoulds." What should I do? What do they think I should do? The guilt became massive and the pleasing became impossible this last year. The more I tried to please the more things seemed to unravel. Somethings are meant to unravel. This evidently was one that I liked keeping nice and tidy, but God loved me more than that and began to pull at the thread. As it unraveled I tried everything in my power to sew it back up...only to arrive in NZ and see what seemed like the last piece unravel.

Four months into this experience I am starting to embrace the moment. And you know what? It's good. Is it painful? At times still yes. But heck it was painful before and now at least the pain is part of healing instead of just sitting in me. I am becoming a Dana I have never seen before and some days, like I said earlier, that is scary. I have tasted God's goodness and God's freedom and I want it. 3 steps forward 2 back some days, but that means each day I am still taking ONE STEP towards growth and God and who He created me to be. That is HUGE! It's rocky at times, and at times trying out these new feet of mine I still hurt people, but I am growing and I am genuine....not sorry to get them to stop being upset with me, genuinely sorry I hurt them. But that's the end...no more beating myself up and living upset and taking on other people's responsibility. I am going to make mistakes. I have made mistakes. Truth. No way around it. I am learning to be me. I think I just might like me. I have never allowed myself to really like her before. I masked it well, even to myself at times, but now I want to just be me.

I am grieving and healing and resting. I am taking time to do these things and believing God to show up each day....I just need to look beyond my circumstance. It happens in emails (thanks Annette!), in butterflies, in runs, in pod casts, in sweet moments that others don't even see, but He does show up. God is good.

Thanks for praying with us. Thanks for listening to my process. I am still searching for a job and not sure what's next. Thanks for praying about that with us, too! God is still good even when circumstances aren't....and perspective is in the eye of the beholder I am realizing. God's provision has been real and consistent in my life, this season is no different. He provides and He loves and for that I am thankful. Simply thankful. God is gooder than I think, I changed the way I thought.