Hello D.W.D.I. Family!

    How are you all? I hope you all are doing well and having wonderful days, evenings, weeks, etc.!  How am I doing? I am okay.  I am hanging in there and just trying to make it.  Why?  Let me explain.

   Okay, so I failed that exam again.  Then, that "someone wonderful" disappeared on me.  I wondered if it is because he thinks I am a loser for failing that exam again and for being unemployed.  I honestly do not know, but I feel that just disappearing on someone is BEYOND CRUEL.  I still want to cry when I think of him and how I thought he cared for me and really saw me for who I am.  I get mad at myself for being a sucker and believing him.  I get mad at myself for not passing this exam, and I am stressed because I know I need to pass that exam this time because I will run out of money for insurance and I need health benefits A.S.A.P.  My family, I love them, but they are driving me NUTS about studying for this exam.  I just met a new guy who is a total sweetheart but I wonder if I am dating too soon.  And, my hair is coming out because of stress.  Everyone, including my well-meaning mother and supervisor keep trying to give me advice for passing that exam but it just makes me feel more self-conscious, like they think I have not passed because I am lazy or something.  UGH! Fortunately, my friend passed her exam.  Praise God for that because she needs her license to find a much better job.  I am so happy for her, but I soon realized that I was the only one out of my friends who still was not licensed and I just felt awful all over again.

  I worry about those things quite a bit, but less than I used to do.  I still feel like I take those stressors and anxiety triggers away from God which makes me feel awful when I do not have to feel that way.  Why? Because the Holy Spirit is here to comfort us as stated in the Book of Acts.

   Jesus rose from the dead during the Jewish holiday of Passover (see Exodus 12 where the last plague passed over the houses with lambs blood on their doors but killed the first born of those who had no blood on their doors (the Egyptians)).  He soon met with the apostles in the upper room (a room in a temple or a room in a house of one of the apostles) and instructed them to wait for the Holy Spirit to arrive.  The Holy Spirit arrived 50 days after Jesus' resurrection from the dead during the Jewish holiday of Pentecost (see Exodus 19 where this is the day when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai).  This is important that Jesus' resurrection and the arrival of the Holy Spirit coincide with Jewish holidays because it shows that Jesus came not to abolish the law of the Jews but to fulfill it and to give us the things God intended for us to have while we wait for Jesus to return to earth.  What are those things?  Let's look at John 14:16-21.

John 14
¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— ¹⁷the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be^[a] in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he and is the one who loves me.He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

Here, counselor can also mean comforter and friend according to a lesson by John Philips, Jr.  The meanings of friend and counselor are fairly straightforward but Philips adds that the word comfort means to "come alongside with strength." (See Philips' sermon here.)  But the Holy Spirit is not just beside us; it dwells within us according to Romans 8:11 and 1 Corinthians 3:16.  God lives in us to keep us, strengthen us, and to allow us to do His work if we only stop fighting His will and allow the Holy Spirit to move within us.  Well, I am working on that and I encourage you all to do so as well.  I know I had to just ask for the Holy Spirit to turn itself on in me today and I plan on doing that everyday so I can work towards having the joy and peace God wants me to have.  He wants that for all of us so let's work on getting there!

Alrighty, well, I need to do something with my hair and head to bed.  Good night, D.W.D.I. Family and take care!

Love,
CCC