December is the hardest month of the year for me. I find myself less productive during this very demanding time. It’s very frustrating, but I know it will pass after the holidays.   I thought I would share my last session with Betty in the event that it could help others who struggle at this time. Here’s what she said:

“Are you running from your anger rather than facing it? Don’t run from your shadow. What have you been trying to run from? Turn and face it , and talk and negotiate with it. What’s depression? It’s part of the shadow. When most people are depressed, they try to eat it down or use something else because they’re running away from it.“

Turn and face your anger and talk to it. Journal. ‘Hey anger. Come here. You and I have to stop running and sit down and let’s talk this thing out.’ Do some dialogue. Work at it. There’s a part of you that wants it done and wants to ride on having done all this work. But no, you still have to do the work. It’s the typical perfectionist anger. You would like to think that you have conquered that negative shadow, the perfectionist. But we’re on a journey and there’s reasons why God permits the manner, timing, and intensity that He does. He doesn’t always do it according to the way we’d like it, but there’s one thing we know for sure. Since He’s God, He always does it perfectly. That’s kind of hard for us at times because we’d like to think that our idea of getting it all over with would be the perfect way to do it. But that is where we might be being called to say ‘Not my will, but thine be done.’ Pray to live in the Divine Will and stop fighting.   God knows what is best for us. It’s not easy, but He didn’t say it was going to be easy. But He did say, with His grace, we could conquer.

For you to have to turn to Jesus and have Him save you from your low energy is good for you because it helps you stay humble. When you go through these times, it helps you get closer to Jesus. “Not my will, but Thine be done.” To really mean that takes a lot of strength, courage, and humility.

By you submitting to what the Lord is showing you, it could be a much greater prayer than going to chapel. When we go into rebellion over what God is permitting in our lives, that yielding, that letting go of our will, that prayer, ‘Not my will, but Thine be done,’ is a very powerful prayer. Yielding to the Father’s will is the greatest prayer of all.“