You should have seen me ... yesterday

The day before, the day of the inauguration, which was Oh Happy Day in most of the rest of the world, was a very troubling day for me. Emotionally, I was completely unstable. I started watching this DVD named "Conquering Your Thought Life". It is a lot like the model below, only you cast off the negative thoughts (which come from the devil, the enemy, or The Evil One, if you will, muhahahaha) with the truths of God (He will never leave me or forsake me, He loves me as much as He loves Jesus). It was like a wrestling match was going on in my head. It reminded me of Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestled with a man one night until daybreak (I'm thinking, maybe up to 6 hours?). These thoughts of sadness and loneliness, sometimes I had them by the throat, and sometimes they had me by the throat. I would feel sadness and say, "I have the joy of the Lord, and that is my strength! Sadness is not welcome here!" I was pacing and crying and affirming and rebuking and trying to believe what I was saying. If I have the joy of the Lord, where was it? My stomach was cramping, my eyes were puffy, my back was hurting from tossing and turning funny all night before. But I went to bed after talking to my sister, and then I woke up feeling a little better. I walked to my car semi-defeated, and I drove to work, crying and rebuking the whole way. I straighten up enough to get ready for a meeting, then it is more crying and rebuking on the way to the meeting. But then I got distracted by trying to remember the way to place I was driving to (I dunno, somewhere out the in the industrial boonies of Baltimore), ended up having a good meeting (even though there was an annoying thought of shouldn't you be worried, or scared, or something?).

Then, something happened that I didn't even realize until I was on my way home from work: I wasn't having those fits of sadness or worry or whatever. I did find a Christian radio station to keep my mind centered on God, and on the way back from the meeting, I'm harmonizing with some old time hymn; then, with another song, I changed the lyrics to confess my love for my cat. Now, tonight, I think I will be able to have a peaceful sleep, and I know for sure that I am going to keep those negative thoughts in a head lock. The Evil One (muhahaha) doesn't give up that easy, so he'll be back with some other garbage that I will have to combat. But the great thing is that now I know for a fact that this works! The truth does set you free! And me hearing myself vocalize these truths helped it to stick in my head.

Now, I can already laugh at myself yesterday. Picture me starting to whimper, then suddenly yelling "NO! I am MORE than a conqueror, I am NOT defeated! You have lied to me for way too long!"

Ack! I need to get to bed before I O-D on coffee in the morning. We'll see how long these skies stay clear.