I hate disappointing anyone, but I especially hate disappointing McT, and even more so, God. Just so you know, McT is my therapist.

I’m in a stuck place at the moment, and it feels impossible to get unstuck. I know it’s not undoable. It just feels that way, and sometimes feelings are easier to listen to than logic.

So how do I get beyond this impasse? It sounds easy enough ~ just stop listening to all those negative feelings. But it’s not as easy as you might think, because it requires that I change a number of things in my life, and I don’t like change.

Most people don’t like change because it means they have to learn new ways of doing things, and the same can be said of me. At age 70, I’ve become set in my ways, and I don’t want to change the way I do things. But I know that God is timeless and He doesn’t feel old. His joints don’t ache and He doesn’t get tired, so He’s not bound by the same constraints as we are. My joints do ache, and I’m tired all the time, so it’s gotten harder and harder for me to do even the simplest things like pick up my socks and put them in the laundry so I can wash them. As a consequence my bedroom floor is covered with dirty socks, and I’m too tired to pick them up.

HARRUMPH!!

My whole apartment is like my bedroom floor, and though the rest of my apartment isn’t covered with socks, it is covered with other things that need to be picked up just as badly. And the cats don’t help matters any, because they just love to race around tearing things up, making the mess even worse.

I THINK I NEED A HOUSEKEEPER!!! However, even if I had a housekeeper, that wouldn’t give me an excuse to leave things in a mess.

When I was talking with McT yesterday, he suggested that I see keeping my apartment clean as an act of worship towards God. I hadn’t ever thought of it like that, and I really like that idea.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ~ Romans 12:1, NKJV.

He proposed taking Romans 12:1, quoted above, and instead of my body, substitute my apartment. So it would read, “Sarah, by the mercies of God, present your apartment as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” ~ Romans 12:1, paraphrased and personalized. I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that, but something needs to be done about this apartment, and keeping it clean as an act of worship towards God would help to motivate me to work at it. And I REALLY need motivation!!

With this stuckness I’m struggling with, I’m feeling broken and especially in need of God’s mercy, grace, and help. I always need God, every second of every hour of every day, but I need Him particularly right now, because with my joints aching so much, it’s going to be really hard to bend down to pick up all my socks, since some of them are under my bed.

When I get stuck, and I’m stuck for a long period, I feel like I’m disappointing God ~ and at the moment, McT as well ~ because I’m not making the right choices. I’m sitting around wallowing in self-pity. I know it’s not helpful to do that, but I’m doing it anyway. Maybe if I could see some progress being made on my apartment I’d feel better about myself, and I’d be able to stop feeling sorry for myself. It’s kind of a cyclical thing. If I could just cut the tape next time I go around the cycle, I’d slide off the end and the cycle would stop.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I just know that things have to start getting better pretty quickly, because I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I feel overwhelmed most of the time, but with God I can’t be, so I’m just listening to negative feelings again. It makes me really mad at myself, and I feel like a total screwup. I have to remind myself that with God all things are possible.

²⁴“And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁵When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁶But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ~ Matthew 19:24-26, NKJV.

And for added emphasis,

²⁵“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁷But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” ~ Mark 10:25-27, NKJV.

Then I think I’m probably giving place to temptation by listening to negative feelings, at which point, God reminded me of that verse about temptation,

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. ~ 1 Corinthians 10:13, NLT.

So what it boils down to is that I have no excuse. I can trust God or I can reject Him and go it on my own. Of course there’s really only one option ~ trusting God. Rejecting Him and going it on my own is no option at all.

It’s just that trusting Him feels so incredibly hard right now, because it means that I have to trust Him for the strength to help me get down on my hands and knees and find all my socks when my joints hurt, and then get up inspite of the pain and weakness.

And I have to trust Him to help me clean up my kitchen regardless of how much my knees and hips hurt when I’m standing at the sink and loading the dishwasher. I have to do all that myself while trusting Him for the strength.

And I have to trust Him for the strength to get down on the floor so I can clean out the litterbox, and then get back up, when I hate cleaning out the litterbox.

All of that feels like way too much trust to me, but it can’t be, because it says in Scripture,

The Lord answered, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it would obey you!” ~ Luke 17:6, NLT.

This has turned out to be a pretty long post, but it’s been kind of stream of consciousness. More than anything else I’m preaching to myself, and all of you get to listen in as I try to encourage myself.

More than anything I know that God is faithful. I know He will help me if I’ll just let Him.

So I just have to let Him!