Spirit vs. Flesh

I should be locked up til the end of June.

I should not be allowed to speak much less have conversations, talk on the phone, give advise, be a friend, date my husband, discipline my kids, update Facebook, text, email, explain... anything... to anyone. In fact, I shouldn't even be blogging right now. (I'm only slightly exaggerating.)

I definitely should not be allowed to watch commercials, read my blogs, hear songs, watch movies, or hear my children's prayers.

I am pretty much a wreck right now. I hope that I've been able to hide this protect you all from my madness. It would be wonderful if somehow I've been able to mask all my craziness and none of you had noticed and are surprised by this post. And if you have noticed, and hadn't told me, bless you for pretending I'm normal accepting me as I am and loving me anyway.

Right now (even at this very moment) my hormones are going completely hay wire. Or so it feels to me. I am on an emotional high one minute, loving life and motivated and great. The next minute I'm balling like a baby over some car commercial. The next minute I'm furious over something my kids did. Furious. And this is what its like to be Amy right now.

I firmly believe that as a woman of God, one of my... responsibilities? duties? no. I don't know what the word is, but as a Christ following woman, actively growing in her faith, I need to be able to rightly divide spirit and flesh. What does that mean? (Especially for women?) It means I need to be able to tell when my tears are spiritual and when my tears are hormonal. (And if I have any men readers out there, let me just tell you- be glad you don't have to deal with this.) Its bad enough... in general. Monthly, ya know? But when I'm pregnant, boy, watch out.

Constantly, I find myself regretting the words that come out of my mouth. Or things I've done. Its like it all jumps out there so much faster than I can catch it. Like my filter just broke. I think I need to go put myself in time out. (And I'm 28, which means I need to sit there for 28 minutes. Yep, that sounds about right.)

Its not an easy thing to divide spirit and flesh. To know if the high I'm on is the Lord, or the 1/2 box of Valentines candy? And I can only assume that its so much harder right now because of the extra hormones, being pregnant.

So should we stifle our emotions? No not necessarily. Sometimes we need a good cry to let it all out. Or 3. Don't back that stuff up or it could explode! Just so long as we know that its only our emotions, not our true heart on the matter. For example-

When Abby was born, I was upset. And confused. And kind of hurt. Things like this happen to "other" people, not to me. (Totally Godly, selfless point of view, right?) ;) But if I'm being honest thats how I felt. Now, my spirit wanted to put my trust in the Lord. And so I did. But sometimes, I needed a good cry. NOT because I wasn't putting my faith in Him in those moments. Not because I wasn't fully relying on Him to get me through that difficult time. But because I'd just been through a (for me) traumatic experience and had a touch of postpartum depression, and needed to just cry on my bed. I even remember praying as I cried "Lord, I don't know why I'm crying, I fully trust in You that You are sovereign and have this all under control. But I can't help but cry." And I know that He spoke back to me that it was ok. To let it out. That He was big enough to handle it. That He created me as an emotional being. And now I really believe that the bigger deal is that WE understand when our crying is just crying for crying's sake. Or when our crying is out of fear. Or untrust. Big difference.

Anyway, that was just using the example of tears, but right now my issues are tears, filters, anger, funk, elation, and bummed-out-ed-ness. Thats a lot of issues. And I'm trying. Not trying to fix them. Because I know it won't be enough for me to do it on my own. But trying to lay it at Jesus' feet. Crucify the flesh. That's Christian-ese for take the junk, bow your head, give it all to Him. Let Him clear the muddied waters. Because it has to be laid on Jesus. Sometimes you've got to keep laying it down. It wants to jump back on your back. But its a daily thing. (Or hourly in some cases, ahem.)

For me clearing the waters looks like- crying over a commercial, okay. Getting furious over dumb stuff someone says and making a federal case over it, creating emotional chick drama, not okay. Time to go back to Jesus. In fact I pretty much need to say a quick prayer before ever opening my mouth. Lord go before me!

Because I either need to separate flesh from spirit, and crucify the flesh... or someone's gonna have to lock me up until the end of June.

PS. Some of this is probably not even said the way I want to say it. But you get the point. :)