The Devil Inside Me

No, not like the Exorcist, just so we're clear.  Or even like the movie that my title rips off.  (Except I haven't seen it, so technically, I can't be sure.)  Just the same though, I've got a nasty little demon sitting on my shoulder, or up inside my ear, attempting to sabotage a great deal about my life right now.  And in case you were curious, It. Feels. Awesome.

Life is tough at the moment, for a couple of small reasons, and one really big reason.  My grandfather, one of the most incredible people I've ever had the pleasure to meet in person, is really not doing well.  I guess you always expect that one day you'll lose your grandparents, but to be honest, I'd really rather not.  My grandfather is a very important person to me, and I really think it would be just fine if lived another 15 or 20 years.  Oddly enough, though, it seems I don't get to make those decisions.  My grandfather's future is in a more capable set of hands than my own, I know that, but that doesn't mean that part of me wouldn't prefer to take the reigns here.

Obviously, this Big Bad has taken over a great deal of my thought and prayer life.  But there are always the little day to day things too.  Like money.  Like how my beautiful little boy who I love and would NOT sell back even if that were an option, will have cost us about 5k just to get out of my body and out of the hospital, never mind the little additional cost of keeping mim alive for the next 18 or so years (since after that, it's on him).  And like how earlier this week, the husband's transmission decided to get, shall we say, creative, about when it wanted to allow the car to move.  Still not sure about the full damage there, but we saw some pretty cartoonish dollar signs in the mechanic's eyes, so I assume that this can't be good.

And lastly there's always the niggling little issue of my diet.  Today is day 4, and I know for a fact that I'm entering into the hard times.  I've been here before dozens of times.  I've touched a "bottom" weight on day 3, only to see a slightly higher weight on day 4.  On top of it, I know that there's a decent chance that tomorrow could be higher still.  Yes, I'm still dieting, yes, exercising at least 30 minutes a day (starting small, I know), but somewhere between water retention, rejuvenating new muscles, and the body's panicked reaction to any weight loss whatsoever, I may not see another "net" pound loss for another week or two.  Which makes it VERY easy to give up now.

The demon on my shoulder wants me to despair.  He wants me to quit.  He wants me to panic.  He wants me focus on myself and my wants in a way that makes me useless to myself, my God, and my family.  He wants to make me focus on my own insurmountable faults and weaknesses because good Lord, he knows that they are there, and he knows that they are many.  And the linch pin here, is that he wants me not to pray.  He keeps telling me not to bother with praying about minor issues such as my health and our financial status when there is such a big issue at hand.  How selfish is it, he says, to worry about your pant size when your grandfather is fighting for his life? And it's a hard argument to answer, I must say.  It's certainly kept me from praying about a vast number of things throughout my life so far.

But today was different for me.  Today, I informed the nasty demon that my God is infinite.  That my God can hurt with my family over this scare while he bears the burden of my family's financial concerns, while he sustains me past my own physical weaknesses.  God can hurt when thousands of his children undergo genocide while at the same time hurting for one of his children who fell down and skinned her knee.  My God isn't just big enough for the big things, he's big enough for the little ones too.

He's also, by the way, the God of insurmountable blessings.  He's the God that has redeemed so many places of pain and heartache in my own life that at this point, I can't even keep track.  He's the God that has already blessed me far beyond what my imagination could have conjured, despite my own weaknesses and propensity for sin.

So despite life being a little tough these days, I'm not spending every day plagued by anxiety as I once was.  Not because there are less things to be anxious about, but because I'm learning more and more about how to pray.  And even more importantly, about who I'm praying to.