I seriously wish I could be 100% free. Meaning I wish I didn’t feel like a slave to my circumstances. There are times when I feel like no matter what I do I’m bound for some sort of punishment or disappointment and it makes me angry. My wife is gone for a few weeks and I’m adjusting to being alone. I’ve been alone for about a week and a day and I’ve been pretty sick. This is something I wish I could face and have “joy”, but I can’t say that I have any. Also, there were some expectations put on me that I didn’t meet – and regardless of how much I apologize and ask for forgiveness it seems like its not getting any better. This is a tough pill to swallow because I try very hard to do what’s expected of me. I’ve never really been a person who “doesn’t care what anyone thinks” – even when I was a non-believer. Sometimes I wonder if people see this about me and use it to get what they want. Who knows. The point is I’m desperately wanting to be free of it. To make a mistake, apologize, and whatever happens after that I'm okay with it. One of my biggest flaws when I came to Turkey was that I “covered things up”. Meaning that when something was my fault, I tried to deflect it – mainly out of fear that someone would have something to hold against me, leading to feeling things like inadequacy and worthlessness and I hate that. But after working on me a little bit, Jesus has led me to not cover up as much. But now I’m in a state where if someone DOES hold something against me, I’m highly sensitive to it. It’s kind of like my defense mechanism got stripped away and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m really hoping that Jesus comes to the rescue here. I’m in what I consider a really crappy/unfair situation. My wife is 1000s of miles away and I can’t talk with her – it feels pretty bad. I’m sure military couples feel something like this or worse for an even longer period of time. I wish I could say I'm a "strong person" and deal with this but I'm really not. I’m trying to battle with Jesus but if he doesn’t carry me, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.
I don't know how many people read this but please pray that these chains are broken from me and that I can have more confidence in Jesus.