Leaving the weekend behind

A brief update on my weekend: I tried to make granola bars for Paul, so he'd have a portable, filling, healthy snack; I failed rather miserably (although the granola that resulted isn't that bad, I guess). I intended to clean our apartment and straighten things up; I managed to vacuum the kitchen (which needed it most desperately) but that was about it. I wanted to make a patchwork valance for our kitchen window; I started, but probably won't finish until next weekend at the very earliest, so now I have all the random pieces of fabric sitting around making the place look even messier than it otherwise would (see previous point!) I planned to do my Bible study in preparation for our meeting Tuesday night, but forgot until 8:30 last night (and I didn't get very far because it's pretty intense). I hoped to make delicious meals for Paul to come home to after drill on Saturday and Sunday, but I really didn't do any cooking at all the whole weekend. I thought I had figured out how to run a Java applet for my homework assignment, but then found out that I got an awful grade because the grader couldn't get my applet to load. I desired to make our apartment a place of rest, peace, and beauty, but I felt so exhausted and discouraged that I wasn't even able to keep myself consistently happy and cheerful, and struggled to be loving and joyful. In addition, God convicted me about a few areas where I was putting Him into the limits of my understanding, and rejecting or ignoring things I didn't understand or didn't like, and while that is definitely a good thing in the long run, it isn't necessarily pleasant at the time, and it contributed to my feeling of discouragement even though I knew intellectually that God still loved me and wasn't angry with me (side thought - I am sometimes absolutely terrified that God is angry with me, so scared that I am afraid to even open up my Bible for fear of what I might read. I don't think this attitude really reflects the reality of who God is and what His relationship with me is now that I've been adopted into His family! But I still struggle with it.) Basically, in all the little and not-so-little tasks I set for myself, I fell short (in some cases, very far short) of the goal. Whether I was trying to cook or sew or pray or have a joyful heart, I just couldn't do it. So lucky me, I got to start the week feeling like a miserable, worthless failure. But as I was writing this post, not entirely intending to post it because it was devolving into a list of complaints, God reminded me of a very encouraging verse: "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:13-14 The challenge in those verses is rather obvious. The encouragement, at least to this rather negatively-inclined individual, is not quite so obvious! But it is this: that we are not bound forever to the failures and sins and mistakes of our past - that we can forget them and move on from them, that we can be free from that over-hanging burden of guilt and fear of condemnation, because God has already forgiven them and wants us to keep moving forward. Even when it is a sin that we are leaving behind, rather than just a failure to meet a human expectation, once we have repented, we don't need to linger in the guilt and the shame any longer. We are free to move forward, to keep pressing toward God, to continue seeking His face and striving to trust and obey Him by grace through faith. That freedom, that lifting of the burden of the past, is one of the most encouraging things ever! So weekend, I am leaving you behind, and choosing today to reach forward and press toward my goal of knowing and following Jesus Christ.