the birthday is over

It has been an amazing week. Nearly every single day last week was filled with things I love to do. It was like the whole week was a birthday celebration. Tuesday I went to work for only 4 hours and left after my coworkers threw a party for me. We ate good food and ate around the table like we do every shift. My coworkers there are like a family and I love it. For the rest the the evening, I hung out on the beach with my friend and my dog. The next day, another friend and I drove to meet yet another friend and we went hiking to Pt. Reyes beach where we saw a whale. No kidding, a whale. I later saw on the news that it was actually too far inland and was kind of stuck. Well, we thought it was cool to see a whale that close up anyway. The next day another group of friends and I went to Great America for the day and I had a blast. We went out to dinner and I had ribs--yum. So that brings us to Friday. Another group of friends picked me up and took me to San Francisco to a delicious dinner (it was a buffet and I ate two heaping platefuls of food) and then we saw the most beautiful ballet ever by the San Francisco Ballet. This was all a surprise and it made me feel like a princess and anything having to do with ballet melts my heart anyway. So then once it was finally my birthday on Saturday, I pretty much took it easy. Hung out with the fam, got a pedicure with the girls and then went to church. After church my friends threw a party for me and we danced like crazy people until midnight. It was SO MUCH FUN. So, I can say that I have been overwhelmed by the kindness of my friends. I cannot believe that people care about me so much. Honestly, I'm blown away. Then Sunday and Monday came. I'm not sure if Satan overheard that I was having fun and it needed to end or I'm PMSing, but I crashed hard. There was an incident of confusion with someone that sparked it all but then I just could not pull myself together. It was one of those things that is not a big deal and it should not be a big deal and in all other times and circumstances would not be a big deal but for some reason, it IS a big deal to you at this moment for unknown reasons. I can't remember the last time I felt so down. Yesterday I actually went to work looking like a complete slob. I didn't give a shit. Something happened and suddenly my thought patterns started to spiral down. I was stuck on my usual downer thoughts like, "You are worthless" "You are undesirable" "You are alone" "You are nothing" "You are invisible". . . I literally had to go for a walk and be brutally honest with God. Even saying, "God, ______ is more important to me than you are right now" I just laid everything out before him. I told him what I was afraid of, I told him all of the things that had my focus, I told him what I needed and what I wanted. I had heard on the radio earlier that day that Worship = Focus. Whatever you're focused on, you are worshipping. I was immediately transported to the Sea of Galilee. As my eyes turned away from Jesus, I found myself drowning and gasping for air. Then I had to read through all of my emergency verses. I tell you, I had to do an intervention on myself. Then I told God that I needed him to show me one small step at a time--what I was to do next because I was so overwhelmed. Seriously, thinking about just two things at a time felt overwhelming. Now this all may sound really silly to you. When I got home, I was faced with a disaster. My house had gone to hell in little over 24 hours. Everywhere you looked was a complete mess. But I just did the next thing that popped into my head. I'd like to give God a little credit here, because my mind would have normally become overwhelmed and immediately thought of the next 30 things that had to be done. But I just did the very next thing that God told me to do. For the next three hours, I did only the next thing that God told me to. From "iron your scrubs for the next two days" all the way to "get the coffee maker ready for tomorrow morning" By the time I usually go to bed (1 AM) the house was clean and it was a miracle. I started the morning off the same way. There's something about saying, "God I desperately need you today," that makes everything run so much more smoothly. Like I said in a previous post, I feel like an accident victim learning how to walk again. I can only look at the very next step. I'm not sure why I just rambled on that long, but I guess I just needed to let it out. I was on such a high from the week and now I feel like I just had the wind knocked out of me and I'm gasping for air. You know, just when you think you've gone through enough and life is starting to be happy and you love your friends and you feel so blessed, you find yourself knocked down and the rest of it is just spinning around your head. I'd kind of like to leave the roller coasters at Great America.