Everybody Needs A Prayer, and Needs A Friend.

Lately I have been very overwhelmed.  The holidays always bring about wonderful yet at times stressful feelings.  Throw on top of that all of the financial worries that come with making sure you got everyone that perfect gift that shows you care enough to know who they are without them saying.  Last but not least...I had a curveball thrown to me a couple weeks ago when I found out my boss was interviewing and has now hired a girl who was involved in making sure my sixth grade year and then some were a living nightmare.  I have no way of escaping this so I am super anxious about this as well.  However today I was talking to a friend about these things and she reminded me of something that, unfortunately I need reminding of quite frequently, "Even when you are stressed and busy, set aside time for you and God.  That will center your whole day."  I am the absolute worst at this and it is so easy for me to do, but when I get slammed and start getting anxious about stuff I tend to set my God time aside.  He kind of gets set on the back burner, I think it's because I know He will always be there and I have stuff in my life on deadlines.  This is the absolute worst way of thinking, but honestly I revert back to this every time.  I am so hard to discipline with this stuff. I am a mega worry wart.  So, I decided when I got home from work I would take some time to sit and just listen to what He had to say to me.  

One of the best things God has used to speak to me is music.  All kinds of music.  Something that I heard today was in the song Lean by The National from the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack. The very first line is, "Everybody needs a prayer, and needs a friend."  Something I struggle with is letting people help me.  I try hard to do things on my own because things were always easier that way growing up.  Not that my parents don't help me by any means.  I love my parents so much for everything they have done and taught me to get me to where I am now.  They continue to teach me everyday.  I just always wanted to try to do stuff on my own so that I wouldn't add any extra on to their load.  Anyways, hearing that phrase "Everybody needs a prayer, and needs a friend," it was like He was reminding me, "Eden, its ok to have a little help.  Everybody needs it."  I also saw this picture posted on To Write Love on Her Arms facebook page that had a quote, "You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and roadtrips.  Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else.  YOU WILL NEED OTHER PEOPLE and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things."  I heard that one loud and clear God. Thanks.  So I decided to take some action and do some digging to hear more.

A few weeks ago I found my old Bible at my parents house.  When I opened it up and started flipping through it I realized how far gone I used to be and utterly lost.  It was like someone else's book.  Not mine.  I am so incredibly blessed beyond belief to be where I am in my life now.  I truly have let go of some of that stuff from the past that had been weighing me down and holding be to the bottom of my own ocean, alone.  However occasionally there were pieces that I found highlighted or marked that I didn't remember why I had unless to unintentionally help me right meow.  Here are a few verses I found.

Matthew 6:27 "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?"

Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the is its own trouble."

Zechariah 1:3 "...Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you."

Acts 17:27 "they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being.'"

So basically...I hear you God.  Thanks.  I am so incredibly blessed to have the people in my life helping me and guiding me in the right direction when I start to venture off the path.  I am thankful this Thanksgiving for those people in my life that are "a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things." You know who you are.  I love you all very much.  

Happy Thanksgiving!