Day 94

My day was mostly OK until the evening when I didn't feel so great. I got a letter about an appointment with the psychiatric team which made me anxious and also blew up my sadness about not being able to see Lucy.

As well as crèche and tutoring, I did an hour or so working on the next section in my book.

It was looking at how God had created man to be in a perfect relationship with him and with each other but then, since the Fall, we have problems with our relationships, economics, health, emotions etc.

It is generally in our childhood that we develop our core beliefs. Ideally we would all grow up in a loving and supportive environment but one result of the Fall is that there will always be some things that aren't quite perfect. So all of us will grow up with at least some negative core beliefs. The book explained that we usually can just dismiss them but, in times of anxiety and depression, they cause us to have more negative thoughts and be more affected by them.

We may often think we are totally useless, totally bad, totally unworthy etc. but God would never tell us we are totally anything bad. He might convict us of an area we need to work on but that would be in a constructive refining way. Therefore we can dismiss such thoughts or beliefs as lies.

We may also believe others are totally undependable, always let us down, always manipulative etc. and this may make it difficult for us to believe that God could possibly be totally trustworthy and reliable. But it is true that God is totally dependable and good, whatever we believe.

It might be very hard to not automatically have negative thoughts about God or consider my own situation as dismal but I can keep fighting these thoughts with Truth.

'There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' Romans 8:1

'This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might love through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins' 1 John 4:9-10

'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness' 1 John 1:9.