Dusting and Dumping

Dusting and dumping, in a nutshell, describes my second job...I am cleaning offices for a corporate office in Holland. I've been there since March and this will also be my full-time summer job! I wouldn't recommend working 70-75 hours a week, but I couldn't risk being without employment during the summer months! So, as exhausting as it is, I am counting my blessings and am very thankful that God has provided, yet again!!

Besides the incredible amount of fun that dusting offices, window sills, can lighting, and dumping approx. 3oo trash buckets nightly (well, we alternate jobs every other night), the downside is that it gives a person way too much time to think!!

In March, I started out great! Great attitude, life was going smoothly, and I was using my "alone time", as I worked, to pray for family and friends while I cleaned!! It was awesome! But as exhaustion sets in, so does negativity and resentment! Satan is really good at getting us when we're weak.

My "prayer time" has done a complete "360", and instead of praising and thanking God for all His blessings and interceding for family and friends, I began throwing myself the biggest pity party you've ever been invited to!! Blame, criticism, and synicism have crept in and for about the past 3 weeks I've gone from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other; sometimes all in one night!! I find myself resentful, sad, angry, happy, excited, lonely, and wondering what on earth is wrong with me?!! Am I becoming premenopausal (that sounds like fun!!) or am I just plain exhausted, emotionally and physically? One minute I'm in the valley, the next on the mountaintop! Or have I fallen into the trap that Satan has set for me in this time of weakness?

This is not at all what God wants for His children. He commands us to be content "whatever the circumstances"! Thankfully, He is a loving God, and He does understand what I'm going through.

I asked God to help me get control of my emotions and to help me stay focused on His promises and the many blessings He lavishes on me each and everyday.

My devotions this morning said, "God's standard is to live moment by moment victory!" Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ". 1 Cor.15:57

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us." Romans 8:37

I cannot have this victorious life in my own strength. The secret of living victoriously is in the power of the victory provided by Christ. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 1John 5:4

It is time to quit fighting my battle with worry, stress, self-pity and criticism! It is time to dust off the dirt and dump the garbage of this sin in my life with the rest of the trash!! Time to commit my failures and defeats to Him, who is Christ, my Lord, and allow Him to claim the victory that is HIS!!!

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him." 2 Cor. 2:14

Thank you, Father, that your mercies are new every morning! I am in desperate need of your mercy and grace right now. I praise and thank you that you hear me and know exactly what I need, even before I ask. In Jesus' precious and holy Name I pray, Amen.