Emotions, Accountability, and God

   Emotions are hard, and your brain can suck sometimes. This week was an emotional week for me. Tuesday and Wednesday being the hardest. I started working at a new school (Grewenow) after having a break after leaving the last school (Hillcrest). I was excited to work at a new school, after the high stress intensity of Hillcrest. I didnt go into this week with a negative mindset, but my brain had other plans. 

    On Tuesday my emotions hit me really hard, and by the second hour of the workday I was on the verge of crying most of the day. I had to continually wipe my eyes and try to calm down. By the afternoon I was able to control it a little, but it freaked me out. I was glad when the end of day came, thinking when I went home I would feel better, but I didn't.  Instead I felt full of anxiety, and had thoughts of wanting to quit, because I really didn't think I could make it the rest of the week working there. 

   When Wednesday came around and I couldn't make it past 9:30am before having to go home from being on the verge of crying again, I beat myself up. Who cries on their first week of work? Why was I even crying, Grewenow was nothing like Hillcrest? Was I not ready to do this job? I feel so immature? What do the other staff think of me? What if my mental health is declining? Theres no reason I should be feeling this way. I was fine last week,  and on and on,ruminating. The thoughts were so strong and so powerful that I thought distraction would be the only way to help. Knowing that distraction would only add as a little bit of a buffer. The negative thoughts seemed stronger than the positive ones. I called a friend from the church, and we talked for an hour. It didn't seem to help at the time, when talking to someone usually does for me. She pointed me to Jesus, and told me not to give up on my job, or make big decisions based on my emotions, also to quit beating myself up. In the hard times when the bad thoughts seem to outweigh the good, pray even when you don't feel like it's working because it is. The truth is I hadn't gone to church in the last three weeks, and hadn't been praying much or reading the Bible. When you've gone awhile without these things, you can start to feel off. Thursday morning I put on worship music when I got up. I didnt tear up when I got to work. I had a stomachache but finally things seemed a lot more manageable. I was getting to know the job more, feeling less isolated, etc. 

   The reason why I felt these intense emotions comes down to a plethora of reasons. 1)unprocessed emotions from working at Hillcrest surfacing 2) unprocessed emotions of grief from my grandmas death earlier in the fall 3) fear of mental health decline 4) other people's health worries 5) Satan trying to make me give up and focus on these bad feelings. The devil knows I have been most challenged in life through my journey with anxiety. He used it as a way to see myself as weak. The truth is he doesn't want me to realize how strong I really am. He wants to destroy God's plan for my life. He wants to destroy the positive impacts I'll have on these kid's lives, etc. The truth is I had a really valid reason to feel all these emotions so strongly, and it sucks that they all had to be felt at once.  The truth is when God looks at me he sees a mighty warrior. I may not see it or feel it, but that's okay because God does, and he'll only use this experience to make me stronger. He works everything together for good, we need only to trust in him. I can trust in him when things are hard, and seem impossible.