The Ugly Things

Lately, God has really been bringing to light the amount of negativity that pervades my thinking.

I have struggled with anger for a long time. I’ve had plenty of things happen to me to be angry about. I’ve been mistreated by plenty of people, hurt by the people closest to me, and most recently that included being married to an abusive man. But in the past couple of years or so, I started noticing just HOW angry I became sometimes. It would rise up within me to the point that I could not calm myself down or talk myself out of it. Now, this partly just sounds like I need some therapy, lol. But I feel like God is working these things out in me without a therapist right now – or that God IS my therapist.

I’ve also begun to notice that sometimes when something upsets me and brings me down, I allow that to consume me as well. I become so blue and downtrodden that I again can’t seem to pull myself out of it. I refuse to be cheered up and let it go, even though I try – my mind just goes back to it over and over again.

After realizing these things, I’ve finally begun to realize that these are really, by and large, simply attacks of the devil. He attacks us in our minds by planting thoughts. If he can plant a seed of a thought and make it grow, it can lead to much larger and worse things. One negative thought can lead to another, and before we know it, we can be consistently consumed by negative thinking.

I had thought that my thinking was predominantly negative before, but I stopped seeing it as a big issue lately because I’ve been blessed with such joy and peace bringing circumstances – I didn’t have as much of a reason to be angry or down anymore… but God has been allowing to me to become angry and down lately as a way of reminding me that these issues do still exist and so that together we can uproot them and resolve them so that they are no longer problems that dominate my mind, my relationships, or my life.

I realize now that the answer is not only taking my mind captive, but in rebuking the devil’s attempts to fill my mind with negative thoughts. I need to refuse to believe negative things about events, circumstances, or people. Believe the best in everyone (as the Bible says (which convicted me yesterday) “Live at peace with everyone”).

As God has been bringing these things up, I have been asking Him to “take the ugly out of me.” I’m thankful that He is working these issues out, because I don’t want those ugly things inside of me anymore. It’s not an easy or a pleasant process, but it’s worth it. I’m much happier to be working it out than to be ignorantly or contentedly continuing in those negative ways. Just be warned that when you ask God to do something like that, He answers your prayers! 