Learning....

This week, I'm learning again to not let Satan steal my joy. I've had to learn this so many times in the past several years, especially in high school and a few times in college. This has been one of those weeks. The kind of week where I wish I could tell the people closest to me how I feel, but knowing that if I did it would expose all kinds of "ugly" inside me that I don't want people to see.

One time, in high school, in the discipleship group I was a part of, our leaders gave us wooden blocks and had us write words on them that gave us problems. All of us wrote things like boys, loneliness, rejection, etc. They made us carry these bricks around in our backpacks all week long, and then the next week we talked about them to the group and burned them, as a symbol of giving them up to Jesus. I don't remember exactly what I wrote on my bricks, but I remember one of the girls looking at me and saying, "Ang, you hide so much." I have remembered that moment so clearly ever since then. And it didn't make me mad, it just made me reflect on how much I actually do hide.

So this has been another week of "hiding." I feel like I need to carry around more bricks this week. But I don't want to. I just want to give them to Jesus and not carry them because I know that only He can take care of them. But I also want to talk about them to people, except doing that would make people know how much more I'm hiding, and I want to keep hiding it. Not that I want people to think I have it all together, but I also don't want people to feel sorry for me and start doing things differently out of pity.

I hope this makes sense. If not, I'm sorry. I know that only Jesus can take care of my bricks, because He is the refining fire.