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Thursday 8 October 2015

I am not sufficient

Photo credit: George Samuel and Flickr Creative Commons

This past week has honestly been a hard one. A week of an aching heart and many tears and prayer battles. A weak where I have heard pain upon pain, most of which I have little power to heal.

A dear friend is struggling with her family situation and navigating a relationship.

Another dear friend wants a relationship but is going about it all wrong, and I can't help but read deeper hurt and longings underneath.

And a gorgeous, sweet, amazing young girl I know was hospitalised this week with a severe eating disorder.


The worst thing about it all? I am helpless. I cannot wave a wand and change families. I cannot break the power of a deep psychological and spiritual chain. I cannot force a dependence on God in someone else. That hurts me. My nature is to fix. And sometimes I can. But this week, I have come face to face with the realisation that often, I can't.

I can't.

I am not sufficient.

There are only four things I can do in these situations.


  1. Pray my heart out. I can petition the One who can heal, do miracles, change hearts, break chains, to do just that. I can wrestle in prayer.
  2. Support. Love, encourage, challenge, speak life, and just be there. Be there when my friend needs to cry. Be there to play games with my friend in hospital. Just be there. I refuse to be a fair-weather friend. With God's power, I will stay and love.
  3. Point others to God, not me. Like I said, I am not sufficient. Not nearly. So I am not the answer. God is. I am not the fount of answers. God is. Yes, I can support. I will not pull away when a friend needs to lean on me. But ultimately, the solution is God, not me. That's where I need to be pointing.
  4. Lean on God myself. These are burdens beyond my power to carry. But praise Jesus, I need not carry them! My Good Shepard is there, willing to carry me as I support others. He is my strength. Psalm 59:16-17 is my anthem through this season:  

"But I will sing of your strength,
in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
You are my strength, I sing praise to you;
you, God, are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely."


I am not sufficient. But God is my strength, my sufficiency, my everything.

And, as my piano teacher said, at least I'm not at a loss for prayer points. :P


Cassie xoxoxo


P.S. If anyone has advice on how to support a friend with an eating disorder, please please please comment, or email me (link in the 'Contact Me' page on the sidebar). 

4 comments:

  1. So well said, Cassie!
    Maybe you should do a Rebelution DQ about eating disorders?

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    1. Thanks! Haha, I did! It's going up on Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the responses.

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  2. Hi Cassie! Love your post! Its funny because me and my roommate were just talking along similar lines just today. We were talking about how being in college sometimes limits our time for being able to minister to and reach out to others, yet we really want to help and encourage everyone. And I was saying how God does put certain people in our life in which it will be our calling to encourage them and minister to them (and even then we can't fix their problems, but God can use us to encourage), but that we can't do that with everyone because we aren't God and can't fix everyone's problems. We have to leave it in God's hands and trust God to bring people into those lives of whom we cannot directly encourage at the moment. And its so true, we can always pray!

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    1. Thanks Hannah! (And sorry for not posting your comment earlier, I forgot to check Blogger.) So true!

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