a heart diet..

I've been on a diet for the past two weeks. Not your typical diet to lose weight, I could stand to lose a few pounds here or there I'm sure, but I've maintained the same weight since I was a freshman in high school, so I think I'll be fine, for now, because it's not really what's important to me right now. I've been on & am still on more of a distraction-social-networking-cleansing-re-focusing-esque diet of my heart, head, & life in general.

All stemming from the month of October. It was really just yucky to put it lightly. It was just a really dark, low, not-very-Lindsay-ish, month. It was just an all around tear-filled, worthless-depressing-feeling, disappointing, few weeks of October. Honestly a few weeks of feeling the lowest I've ever felt in my whole life.

I'm pretty blessed to have grown up knowing what I'm truly worth. To my parents, to my family, to my God. I'm pretty blessed to have grown up in a good, no, great home. I'm pretty blessed to have grown up with not much tragedy, heartache, or real suffering. I can only smile looking at the life God's given me. It hasn't always been a walk in the park, but in perspective, as my wise mother always says: "If you're having {even the slightest form of} a bad day, remember someone else is having a worse one". I can have some REALLY terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days here or there, but they last like Alexander's, just a day {or so} & then everything is back to "normal".

...just some "bad days" that stick out in my mind in the life of Lindsay Fillmore:

• running out of gas.
• being late.
• days that of hating every-minute of watching toddlers.
• not being able to pay for big things: my rent {when I lived out of my parents house, they ever-so graciously let me sleep under their roof again for free}, my car insurance, my insulin.
• having high blood sugar, or just struggling with my diabetes in general.
• watching my sisters do awesome stuff & feeling useless because I just go to school & watch babies all day.
• not getting a job(s) that looked very promising.
• two deaths in our family within a week of each other a few years ago.

Some seem harmless & kind of bratty right? In the scheme of things I consider myself blessed again if some of those are the "bad days"I tend to have. I also would consider myself a pretty happy, out-going, positive person more-often-times-than-not, so these "bad days" were very foreign to me, especially when they became constant.

There were days that I'd just literally feel nothing. Like an empty-shell-of a person. I would want to be in my bed all day, not do anything, not talk to anyone, not eat, not go to class, not go to work, not go to church or lighthouse, drive home alone literally crying to God asking Him to pull me out of whatever *this* foreign pit was. I wanted to just sit in my bed, sleep, or cry for no reason, and sometimes I couldn't even cry. {I'm a girl, I'm an emotional girl, I cry. But it was not normal to be upset or want to curl up in a ball at any given time.}

In the midst of all that being the majority of my month, God was still doing something in my heart. I could still feel Him trying to say: "Lindsay, I'm meeting you here. I'm breaking your heart because YOU NEED ME. You can't do this by yourself. You're worth more than anything to Me. I have better things for you in the future, just wait a little longer, be patient. Here is my hand, just take it & get out of this low-pit! I'm the hope you're looking for, that you need."

But I was still being stubborn & letting the enemy fill my heart & mind with: "Lindsay, you're worthless. It's ok to be jealous, you deserved it instead. You're stuck & I'm not going to let you go. You're hurting heart, is just what I wanted. Just stay here in this low-pit with me."

A few days before November started I was still having a lot of these feelings but also having this hope moving inside of me, so I decided I needed to cut things out of my life, step back, strip my heart down, & clear the way to let God do some real healing.

I decided to go on a detox, diet, strip-down. Starting with anything social-network-related {I have cheated a time-or-two, but for the most part have really not been so consumed by it, and I like it}. Spending more time looking for, listening to, seeking, & waiting on God. Eating healthier {still not a real diet, just to be healthier of course}. Not wearing as much make-up as I typically do. Spending more time investing in people; friends, family, my small group girls. And a whole laundry list of other little things to just help myself throughout the month of November.

It's November 15th. I can't even believe this month is already half over. I can't even believe how much more of God I've been seeing. I can't even believe the joy + thanksgiving {appropriate word for November right?} I've been experiencing in the last few weeks.

It's good. It's really good, even though the enemy is still alive & well trying to whisper in my ear that I don't deserve to be out of the "pit", that I should still be down there with him. God is SO faithful I can't even handle it! He meets us where we are, He is renewing our hearts every hour at our highest or at our lowest. He breaks us down when we {I} start to think we {I} can do this life on our {my} own to remind us {me} we {I} NEED HIM EVERY HOUR.

One reason I think God put "my sisters" blog on my heart coming out of October was so I could re-read it over & over again to let it seep into me, just as much as I intended it to seep into every female I know or don't know.

...now go listen to "I Need Thee Every Hour" by Jars of Clay.