I just can’t write a blog post this week. It’s so frustrating to the point of throwing myself off a short cliff. I can’t take the frustration and bang-my-head-against-the-wall feelings. Not worth it right now.
Let me paint a picture for you:
This I s h ow my laptop types if I don’t ix all the mistakes while I”mt typing. My laptop got set on top of the f ridge by a well meaning member of my family and when someone opened the f ridge door my laptop landed 100%% flat on the floor. Since then my k keyboard does this kind of t hing. Drives. me. crazy.
So, no, my frustration has nothing to do with my state of mind. It has everything to do with the deliberate way I need to type and constantly error correct in order to look like an educated writer. Grrrrrr.
So, why live frustrated by writing right now? Deliberate living and constant error correction is exactly how I spent my recovery. I lived too many years like that messed-up-keyboard-typing paragraph. My life was understandable, but there were definitely holes and mixed up messages that made it hard for people to understand my actions.
Why Live Frustrated
When I made the commitment to recover, it meant living in a state of frustration and discomfort. I’d love to allow my fingers to fly over my keyboard right now and get my thoughts out of my head and onto this screen. Instead, I am typing at half speed, making deliberate, bold hits on each key in hopes that the letters will respond to my will to write. I’m going back with my delete button, using spell check to help me fix the wrongs. I’m doing what I need to do, even though I don’t always want to, because I want the end goal of these words on this page more than my keyboard can stand in my way. I’m willing to work for it.
This is recovery. Making deliberate, b old hits on each area of m y life in hopes that the actions I was writing into my life would rewrite my story the way I wanted it to be rewritten. Mistakes happened. I h ad to move s low sometimes, I h ad tomove b backwards s sometimes in order to right a wrong. I had to lean on people, tools, therapy for help in making my words make sense. I wanted r recovery more t Han I wanted my eating disorder. I was willing tow orkfor it.
I was willing to work for it.
I was willing to ask for help.
I was willing to go slow and live frustrated.
I was willing to go backwards and start again.
I was willing to live deliberately and boldly.
Why live frustrated? Why did I live frustrated during recovery? Simple. I wanted recovery like I wanted air to breath, so I worked for it however I could in order to rewrite the story ED was trying to type onto my keyboard. I wanted freedom to let my own fingers fly over each letter until the words formed God’s story of me.
God Uses the Frustration
God taught me perseverance, faith, utter trust, motivation, patience, and peace in the hard. This keyboard I’m typing on right now is a pain in my backside, but God just used this frustration in my life to connect me back to what he taught me thru recovery.
Don’t give up in the hard. Recovery sucks. But it leads to a beautifully unfolding story of God in you. Trust that he’s directing your fingers over the letters to create powerful words of his faithfulness.
And look at this, I wasn’t going to write because of the frustration, but I pushed through and pounded out the words. Because I felt like God had something for me to say to you. I prayed this morning that he would give me words when I needed them today. I didn’t know the form they would take or who they would be for, but God knew.
God knows our story. It’s up to us to trust his power in us to make it known to those who need to hear.
Use your broken keyboard today to write a story t hat means you a re pushing t through t he hard. Yours tory is beautiful in its brokenness.
Your story needs to be told because God deserves the glory from his work in you!
I suggest listening to the podcast, ‘The Next Right Thing’ by Emily P. Freeman. Her words inspire me weekly in how to make decisions in my life. Start with this episode that I feel speaks to what I shared in this post: Episode 78, Feeling Stuck.
