Day 62 - I had a pity party

I'm just going to say it... today I had a pity-party for myself. A "why me, I'm crying out to you God, when is it going to stop, it's never going to get better, this sucks and I can't take it anymore" kind of day. A real true pity party, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if I stomped my feet at least once. It was just that kind of day. But it's over now. Maybe I just needed to get it out but I know that having a pity party not only is really unproductive but it completely questions my faith, the exact faith I promised to have for a whole year. I was able to regroup tonight, watch an amazing sermon online by Pete Wilson that I had missed and now I feel more confident than ever (despite all of the facts and numbers screaming at me otherwise).

For some reason I was curious enough about a pity party so I googled it. Here are some random things that I found:

* A pity party can actually add more stress and make you more upset.
* Norman Vincent Peale said: Tough times don't last but tough people do.
* If you search about a pity party, you will find a lot of people going through serious illnesses. That kind of changes your perspective.
* Someone threw herself a pity party on help.com and strangers left the nicest comments for her. Reading that made me feel better about the world.
* One website said, "The antidote to self-pity is thanking and praising God."
* I found someone who said reading the Serenity Prayer always helped them. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference."

Today my pity party led me through a lot of feelings. I felt scared, sad, hopeless, angry, confused and exhausted. Those are a lot of feelings in one day and obviously they are all associated with worry. Even someone living their year with faith can have moments when they question everything. I did all of that today. But from watching a really amazing sermon I learned that:

* God cares more about who we are becoming than what we are achieving

* God is with us the most when it seems like his presence is absent

* The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of control

* You should not ever abandon your God given values in the pursuit of your God given dreams

* The way you respond to your shattered dreams matters. Respond by being absolutely certain that God is with you.

I don't know if any of this can help you through your hard time. We all wonder why life is so difficult and we all face those ups and downs. My faith was teeter-tottering today between thinking that our situation is impossible to knowing that I need to keep having faith that this is the path I am on and that it has a purpose. And I can keep praying for our miracle to come.

P.S. If you want to watch the service I watched tonight by Pete Wilson go here. So amazing!
If you want to hear the service I spoke about on Monday by Matt Carter, go here.