Devotion James 5:6

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 

James 5:16

It can be difficult to admit our flaws, faults, fears, and failures even to ourselves. There can be pain in looking at the truth of our motives and actions. We share personal information and call it a ‘prayer request’. What motivated us to do that? We can tell ourselves it is thoughtfulness or that we were just concerned. Much tougher to admit it was because we wanted to look like we had the inside scoop or simply because we wanted to impress our friends with a juicy story. Yuck!

A friend does something wrong or hurtful and we don’t confront them because we don’t want to “make waves”. Why not? If we are honest with ourselves, might it be because we are more concerned with them liking us than anything else?

If we can get up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we can then bring these things to our Heavenly Father. We can humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.

These are important and valuable steps, but this is not the final step. We need to share our ‘yuck’ with other people. We don’t necessarily have to share our greatest character defect or secret sin right out the gate. Start small. Open up about little things first. Test the waters. We might very well find that when we share our darker side, we become more accessible and more likeable. Then in this opening up, in this confession, we will be healed. Little by little we will become whole.

eHarmony

I was not cut out for internet dating!!!

I did the profile on eHarmony to see what it would say about me... I didn't really think of it as a match-making service.

I am VERY interested in seeing what kind of options are out there for me, but NOT in actually pursuing anything... I am still married and I will be freshly wounded for a while (and recovering), I am too broken still to even PICK someone healthy and good, I still have kids, I can't date while I have kids, AND I am scared to death!!!!  (About dating, about being rejected, about having to reject someone else, about liking someone else, about being liked - yikes!!!)

So I filled out everything and was very interested in the profile.  Only, then I started getting emails about matches and communications and now I am all a-twitter!  (Flustered, nervous, nauseated etc.)

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings - like i do not like them... I feel like I should email and come clean that I am not really single yet.  But then why would I start some silly communication like that?  I should just ignore it and it will go away, right?

But then I saw that there were a couple people who has CLOSED communication with me.  What does that mean??? I think it means that they were matched with me and didn't want to be, so CLOSED the communication!!!  Why?  What did they read about me that they didn't like?  Why don't they want me???  So that got me all flustered and rejected and hurt!!!  I even got a TINY stomach ache.

Both the positive possibilities and the negative possibilities of singleness and dating FREAKED ME OUT!!!  I have been married since I was born (practically!)... even though singleness sometimes sounds appealing, i never wanted to be single again and I never planned on being single again and now faced with the possibility that I may one day BE single, I am very frightened.  

Worst of Both Worlds

I kind of have the worst of both worlds:

I am married but am all alone; I parent alone, I support the family alone, I sleep alone.

I am single, but can't date because I am married (see above).

I would prefer to be truly married or truly single.

Which shall it be Mr. M ?  

And why am I asking him????

Why do I let me whole future hinge on what HE says and HE decides?  Why can't I ask myself that question?  And answer myself and make a decision myself?  This is why I feel so paralyzed and like a victim.  Yet, I feel I am partially responsible for that.