By Danelle Carvell
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| Sometimes a smile is hard to manage. But there's always a way out of your funk |
I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling like I need a one-way-ticket to anywhere but here. The past two-and- a-half years have been difficult. Today I packed a suitcase and had no clue where I was going. Instead of running away, I decided to write out my frustrations.
Where do I start? I know that a big part of the problem is the state of the entire world right now. We are all stressed, and we've been stressed for too long. Everyone is longing for some relief from the financial stress, the strain of troubling news stories, the lingering fallout of Covid, family conflicts, and the tiredness that results from dwelling on these negative things.
Today I considered taking a break from hosting our family Thanksgiving dinner because I'm just plain tired. Now is about the time when I sent out invites. We do it by text because it's just easier than making a bunch of phone calls. I started to type out my decision to skip the dinner this year, but I wanted to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. So I decided to give it another day.
I've learned not to make decisions from a place of tiredness, stress or frustration because I've often regretted those impulsive decisions. A single day can make a difference in how I feel, and I've learned to take my emotions to God and soak in His presence before saying or doing something that's reactive to stress.
The truth is, I feel like the joy has been sucked out of me. The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength, so if you have no joy, you have no strength. Look at any depressed person and you will see someone who lays around with no desire to do much of anything. They've become "unplugged" from their energy source, and they often don't know how to fix the problem.
Fortunately, I do know how to fix the problem. That's why I've locked myself in my bedroom today, first to write out my frustrations and clear my head, and second to spend time soaking up my energy source and get plugged back into God and His word. I know that negative thinking is what has caused my tiredness and lack of joy. The mind is very powerful, and the body will shut down if we allow negative thought patterns to play like a broken record day after day.
Negative mindsets can appear to be demonic oppression. Negative thinking can also cause depression, and the answer to curing that depression is sometimes as simple as practicing spiritual discipline. You have to be faithful and develop a new way of thinking. Sometimes our lack of joy and feeling tired is actually a demonic attack. It can be difficult to figure out what's causing the way we feel.
But I'm a Christian. How can I be influenced by demons? Jesus himself was taunted by demons in the Bible. He was just stronger than they are. Being a Christian is not a guaranteed protection against demonic strongholds. You may not need an exorcism, but you might need deliverance from the effects of a demonic stronghold.
I recently experienced a demonic stronghold, so I know how powerful it can be. My stronghold was the result of dwelling on hurtful comments that had built up over the course of many years. I couldn't let go of these deep wounds because I need to talk things out before I can let something go. And I couldn't talk it out because I knew the conversation would not be well-received.
So I kept the hurts bottled up and stuffed it deep within myself. It was like a simmering pot of bitterness that I carried around for years in secret. When the pot finally blew its lid, the mess left behind was so destructive that I thought my life and relationships would never be the same.
When someone has a history of abuse, they can develop a kind of post-traumatic stress that makes them sensitive to further abuse. All the painful memories of the past come rushing back every time the person feels disrespected or mistreated. They remember that horrible place they were in when the abuse was at its worst. And even if things have gotten much better, the memory of that pain is still there. Even if there has been forgiveness, the injury has not been forgotten and the scars are still causing reactions.
Because of my past, I am sensitive to lectures, verbal disrespect, negative facial expressions and body language, a raised tone of voice, being ignored, rejected or unappreciated. All of these things hit me harder than they would hit someone who has no history of abuse. For the same reason that soldiers hate fireworks, I hate careless words that leave me feeling bullied and belittled. My abuse was more verbal, than physical.
So how do we break free from the bondage of feeling tired, joyless and beaten up? No Christian who makes Bible reading, prayer, worship, repentance, forgiveness and walking in holiness will ever stay in bondage. There is a way out, but you have to want it and you have to make an effort to break free.
It starts with a daily decision to meditate on the word of God, spend time talking to Him and then as we go about our day, take every thought captive. You have to change your patterns of thinking and push every negative thought out of your mind as each one comes. What you think about controls how you feel and how you treat people. So turn off the trashy music, the trash movies and TV and stay away from people who love to gossip and criticize. Those things are like poison that will bring you to a low place.
I do have the power to pull myself out of a low place. I am stronger than I think I am. Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. When the world beats me up, I go into a quiet room and draw from my power source. Without my encouraging, energizing power source, I am a victim. But with Jesus, I will always have victory. He wants me to be joyful.
"He will keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." Isaiah 26: 3
"Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely or admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things...and the God of peace will be with you." Phillippians 4:8
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