Not for myself alone

Several weeks ago, when I was in huge depths, feeling very bad about myself - feeling ashamed for how needy I had become - I read something that encouraged me. In a Yancey book I was reading he said something like "We don't just live for ourselves alone." And this reminded me that I shouldn't think so much about myself - about how I feel and about how I'm behaving so pitifully. I can reach out to others with what I'm learning through all this. Perhaps not at this moment, but sometime in the near future.

This morning I read something I had underlined in my Bible:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)

That's how I would like to be. How I hate what this disorder does to me when I think so much about myself! It's not how I want to live. I want to be other-centered. And I pray this morning once more that God will help me be that for others. To live for others, and not just for myself.

This morning I'm not feeling great. Plans I had made to make peppernuts with a little girl would, I think, be too ambitious a project for me. I don't know if I'd have that kind of energy. I don't know if I'd be a cheerful companion for her.

I will focus instead on helping my husband with a project of his - bottling some wine. I can be myself with him and he would appreciate my help and my company. If I'm going to be there for others, I need to start with my husband. If I only have a little bit of energy to put out, I need to spend that energy on him. To live for him, the partner God gave me. That man who has given me such great support for 41 years.