Sunday has truly become a day of rest for me. Now that I attend my church's worship service at 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays, I find myself sleeping in on Sunday morning. While I don't do nothing, I certainly don't do a lot. One thing is that my daughter, Melody, and I have gotten up early on many recent weekend mornings and gone hiking or geocaching, both to get some physical activity and to have some fun.
But today was not one of those days, and due to my daughter's late night on Saturday, she didn't even wake up until 11 a.m., even though I was up at 8 and was ready to go out and do something. Instead, we ended up working around the house. We also were preparing for Melody's week-long stay with her grandparents (my in-laws). With the end of the school year, and a week away from beginning Summer Day Camp, she needs to stay with them while I'm at work. That makes me a bachelor for the week.
I used to dread this time away from my daughter. For whatever reason, it used to depress me to be alone. Without her here to distract me, I found myself wallowing in the feeling of how alone I am, and the loss of my wife was much more profound. I would get to feeling very down, and I would just sit around the house doing nothing, which is pretty classic behavior for having depression. I've recovered quite a bit since then, mostly due to finding solutions to several medical issues that were bothering me. Sleep apnea was one of the biggest issues, and since March, I've been using a CPAP machine when I sleep, which provides a better night's sleep for me, and much more energy during the day. Other issues are treatment for my type 2 diabetes, which had led to a better lifestyle nutritionally over the past few years, and treatment for hypertension and high blood pressure. All of this has helped me physically, and I'm feeling much better these days.
I've never formally treated my depression, however. Sure, I've looked into getting therapy of some sort, but nothing really seemed to help. It didn't help that my job continued to get more and more stressful and my responsibilities increased. Things hit a breaking point towards the end of April, and I was really at my wit's end. After talking to my boss, we determined that there were some changes we could make to my job responsibilities that would ease much of this stress, and that's exactly what happened.
But what happened more than anything else, was getting my head on straight with my walk with God. I had not been giving my pain and suffering and issues and stress to Him. My prayer life was more out of habit instead of really talking to Him, and I needed to change that. In addition, Pastor Mitchell, the Teaching Pastor at our church, Grace Community, provided some excellent food for thought in his messages. Without getting into specifics, the messages had me considering that my faith needed a shot in the arm. I haven't been going to the Monday Men's Fraternity sessions for awhile, and I'm not actively involved with a small group, which is something that Grace emphasizes. And while I haven't taken a step forward with either, I do recognize that this needs to change. Overall, I'm thankful for and can feel God actively working in my life. This has given me such a positive outlook on things, and my moods have been so much better over the past few months. I know that this is directly due to what God is doing for me. My prayer life has become so much better, too.
My reason for sharing all of this is so that you can see what a difference God can make in some one's life. I have a personal relationship with Christ, and knowing that He is always here for me is such an amazing feeling. I invite you to invite Him into your heart.
Have a great evening, everyone!
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