What a morning! Awake around 3:45 and already obsessing and dreading the day ahead.  Worried about everyone else's expectations of me and all that I need to be and do for the people around me, realizing that I fall short, and wondering how it will all go!  What a way to start a day!

I knew what was going on, God was calling me to get up and come spend time with Him in prayer. In my mind I told Him it was too early and I needed sleep...but the "dread" wouldn't go away, so I knew what I needed to do. :-)

There came the scripture verse from Philippians again:

Have no anxiety at all, 

but present your needs to God in prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving,

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So I got up around 4:30 and made my coffee, snuggled into my comfy chair with my notebook/journal and a pen.

I decided to take it like a homework assignment.  

Ok, Lord, thank you for life, for air and water, for creating us, for all the good things in the day yesterday, a good long phone visit with a friend, etc...

And thank you for all the things required of me today...Thanks for the good and the bad, the things I don't want to do and the things and reactions of all the people around me today.

I heard the scripture words in my head again,--PRESENT YOUR NEEDS TO GOD --and wrote:

I sure am tempted to be anxious about everything today. Please take care of it all. You have it all in Your hands, and You hold me in Your arms, and You protect me from everything negative.

The more I wrote, the more I started to see that I was hanging on to OTHER people's needs and somehow thinking I was responsible for everyone else's attitudes around me all the time!  It was a good eye-opener, sort of like God reminding me that I'm not everyone's savior.  Only Jesus is a Savior!  I realized again that this attitude of mine is just something left over from my childhood, and it's pretty entrenched in me.

So I wrote: 

Here. I present this to you, Jesus. I need healing and I need Your forgiveness.  I need to be made new.  You're the God who parted the Red Sea, who created all the universe out of NOTHING, who rose from the dead, who ascended into heaven (I even got a kick out of imagining the apostles watching Him go up. Can't think how I would have reacted!)

And guess what? In those 15 minutes of writing, no situation had changed, but I was more peaceful. Really.

I let God guide my thinking while I was writing, and I actually saw some of the nonsense in my thinking, and some of the sense too. Writing it out slowed me down and it was GOOD.

I totally recommend it!