Daughters of Promise November/December 2014 | Page 18

painful relationship issue. We all know that pain needs
comfort and healing. I chose to go to anger, self-pity,
and fear in my desire for relief. These can give a nice,
temporary zap of numbness and sometimes even a
thrilling “high,” but the end result is devastating! Let
me tell you, self-pity or the martyr spirit coupled with
anger does not look becoming on any woman, no
matter how flattering your figure or how beautiful
a face you wear! This junk is best traded in for a
“garment of praise”!

was feeling depressed or discouraged, it was highly
therapeutic for me to talk to God about these truths.
In other words, I was worshiping. Ah….so good, so
freeing, so relaxing, so transforming! One week when
I spent extensive periods of time worshiping, I came
to the realization that I haven’t actually suffered that

On sleepless nights, I learned to get up, read my Bible
and wrestle with God, until He gave me relief through
a word from Him. As I became His student, I learned
that praise is faith in action. Complaining is actually
unbelief because if I can’t I thank God for what He
has allowed in my life, it’s like I am telling Him that I
could have done a better job of planning things than
He. That’s arrogance! That’s the equivalent of me
telling Him that I know more than He does. Seriously.
Who am I kidding? He is God and I am not. Period.
One night when I couldn’t sleep I was reading about
how the children of Israel wandered around the
wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief.
(Hebrews 3:19) They were a bunch of whiners! I
realized that I was wandering around in my own
desert experience and I did NOT want to stay there
for 40 years. I needed to start cooperating with
God and start praising Him! I can see now that I was
holding myself back from rest because of my unbelief
in God, which being interpreted in every day life was
complaining and fighting God and treating Him like
He didn’t know what He was doing.
At first, I found that practicing gratitude was a matter
of the will. I needed to will to praise God. It becomes
a choice to be grateful, even if I do not feel like it. I
remember standing in my kitchen and thinking that
this gratitude thing was as hard as working out—it
would be easier to go to the gym than to thank God
for the things in my life that I did not like. But I am
finding that as I practice gratitude and choose not
to give in to stress, it can actually, with the help of the
Holy Spirit, enter all the way to my heart and
become an inner motivation. I remember
during the season that God was teaching
me gratitude, I woke up one morning, and
without even trying, as I woke up, my first
words were, “Thank you, Jesus!” I thought
to myself, “Where did that come from?” I
believe it was the gracious gift of God,
instilling it deep within my soul.
So much of the battle is in the mind. It’s
easy to base our thought process around
our feelings in the moment. We can swish
those negative thoughts around in our head
until they actually “feel real”. Other labels
for this include “stinking thinking” and/or
“believing lies”. A sure fire cure for this is to
drag our mind back to truth. What is truth?
God’s Word. God’s promises. God’s names.
God’s acts and attributes. I have found this
to be extremely helpful! On days when I
-18-

On sleepless nights, I
learned to get up, read
my Bible and wrestle with
God, until He gave
me relief through a
word from Him.
AS I BECAME
HIS STUDENT, I
LEARNED THAT PRAISE
IS FAITH IN ACTION.