Memorable Yet Frantic

You know how when you get so excited for something in the future, you feel like the days leading to this moment are like years passing by? Yeah well this is how I felt on Monday the 18th. Monday felt insanely long. The hours felt like they were slowly ticking away. I caught myself looking at the clock at work more than usual, thinking that time would go by fast but it never did. Tuesday was the day i had been waiting almost 365 days for. The One Direction Concert. WAIT WAIT, don't leave yet. I know what you're thinking.. "Oh yeah, this post is about One Direction.. I don't feel like reading this. I know nothing about them and I honestly could care less about the concert.. blah blah blah." Don't lie I know that's what you were thinking, but that is not exactly how this post is going to be. I'm not going to be posting all my pictures and videos saying "OH MY GOSH you'll need believe what Niall did or Harry is so much better live!" No, I will be telling you about the trip and the experience because this was sure one for the books. So please stick around because I promise you don't wanna miss this story.

So here was the game plan that we had set for the past few months for how Tuesday was going to go: My mom was going to pick my sister and my cousin, Maggie, from school at 2 o'clock when they got out and were going to pick me up from work and we would head to Nashville. 

I had asked off for this day about 4 months in advance but couldn't get the full day off so instead of working 2-6 I was going to go from 8-3. To me, this was alright to work with because it was better than working 2-6 because then I would totally miss the concert. When I asked off for this trip, it was before my doctor told me that I'm not allowed to work over 4 hours. Even though my normal shift was 4 hours, the past 2 weeks before my doctors appointment I had worked 9-6 every day for 2 weeks. With my dysautanomia, this really wore me out and she could tell in my ANSAR test numbers. So she mailed me a letter to give to my boss, so no more long days for me.

On Monday when I went into work, I asked my boss if I was still working 8-3. I said "I wanted to make sure about tomorrow," and she said "Oh yeah you're off tomorrow." WHAT. I wish I could of seen what my face looked in that moment. I was so confused and I probably showed it. She said "didn't you originally have 8-3? Well, I figured with everything thats going on with you right I just thought it would be best if I just gave you the whole day off. I'm trying to take care of you!" :) This meant the world to me and also my parents. 

So change of plans AGAIN, but this time was good! Around 10:15, mom and I picked up my sister and cousin from school and then we headed to Nashville!! The ride down there was so much fun as we jammed out to some 1D the whole time ;) poor momma. When we got there we sat in the hotel and changed clothes and got ready for the concert. We thought we were doing great on time since we left our hotel, which was 15 mins away from the stadium, around 4:30 and the concert was at 7. Well, of course we got stuck in traffic. We still were going to have to get dinner once we got in Nashville, but plans changed once again. Mom just decided to go ahead and drop us off at the stadium. We got to the stadium probably around 5:30-5:45. We were all stressing out because we had no idea where to go for mom to drop us off and also we had to come up with a place for her to meet us, and the police officers were no help. Finally, we arrived where mom would drop us off and we had to jump out and run because the police officer was whistling and pointing for her to hurry and go. We jumped out at Gate 10 and had no idea where we were. Our tickets told us Gate 1 and section 112. When we walked into the stadium, it was so crowded. There were girls everywhere. Moms were yelling at their daughters to "come on," girls were getting lost yelling for their friends, workers were yelling "ice cold water, no wait, get your ice cold water!!" It was so hectic. We stood in line to get some ice cold water and some nachos. Then we were ready to go find out seats!! After weaving in and out of people, we finally found Section 112. Once, we got situated in our seats after we were in awe about how great our seats were it started to get really really hot. Without even sitting there for 10 minutes, my chair was covered in sweat. The side that the sun was shining right down on was our side. Just our luck. I started to get really really anxious. I never do good in heat because I'm always scared I'm going to pass out. I ended up spending over $20 on water just for myself. That was 4 bottles of water and I also finished everyone else's water too...

Unfortunately I was not on an end seat. The poor lady sitting alone on the end seat probably hated me. I went to the bathroom about 12 times the whole time we were there. I know I know thats crazy..I also ended up having some of the worst panic attacks that I have ever had. Usually, when I get anxious I will leave wherever I'm at, but I couldn't leave the concert. I was stuck there and had to deal with my anxiety all alone. I ended up taking a crumb of my "calm  down pill" to ease off some of the nerves. I really hesitant taking this pill because it calms me down so much that I feel "Bleh" I kinda feel like I'm just there. I don't know how to explain it, but I didn't want to feel this at the concert and not have fun. Of course, my anxiety felt like it was getting too bad to handle so I ended up taking my crumb. I knew all of this was going to happen.. I knew that I was going to have panic attacks just because I don't do good with heat and crowds. This may be part of the reason why I had them, because it was all subconscious. After about an hour, and halfway into 5 Seconds of Summer's performance, my anxiety went down but of course I felt so mellow. As you can tell, I didn't really get to enjoy the concert as much as I had hoped too.. I was counting down till the concert would be over, I think that is what bothered me the most about the concert, I was waiting and wishing for the concert to be over.. the One Direction concert. I normally would cry when it was over and cry during the whole thing. But that just didn't happen, I wasn't myself. It really upset me knowing that this is where my anxiety has gone. It's affecting my daily life and things that I usually enjoy.

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"Come to Me"

"Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me."

On Sunday, this is how the book Jesus Calling stared. Those three short words have so much meaning to them. Just that short sentence has so much love and meaning than one would think. 

This weekend, my family and I went over to my PawPaw's house for family birthday parties (yes another family party that I am blogging about.) It's always nice to get together with family to just talk about what has been going on in our lives since the last time we saw them. Even though there are many stories that I could tell you about the party, this is a different post than the other family birthday parties posts I have written. 
After a few minutes of being at PawPaw's and saying hey to everyone, my great aunt pulled me off to the side and said she had something for me. She took me to the guest bedroom and handed me a little purple present. Before opening it she told me that she has loved reading my blog and that she got me a little "happy." When she was reading my posts she felt that God was telling her to buy me the book that she had been reading called Jesus Calling. I was so happy to get this little "happy"!! I had always wanted to buy this but never got around to it and now I know why, God wanted me to receive it from my Aunt Susie!!! 

On Sunday I started Jesus Calling. It started out by saying "Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me." Just sit there and think about those 3 words and picture God saying those 3 words to you. Picture a tall man wearing all white saying in a deep voice "Come to Me, *insert your name*" This really opened my eyes. I began to think about this one short saying. God, the man over millions of people, all the animals, and the moon and stars, is begging ME, a small life on this huge planet, to come to HIM, the God over this world. How crazy is that? Every day, God is trying to get my attention. All of these minuscule things are crowding my life and making my life so busy. I've been pushing God off to the side and wanting Him to wait and do things on my time. This is not how things are suppose to be done. The God of this universe is trying so hard to get my attention, through my crazy life He's been calling out to me "Stephanie, hey, Stephanie look at Me. Come to Me. I want to talk with you and spend time with you." In the book it states, "coming close to Me requires no great effort on your part." It requires not great effort on my part, but it is still so hard to stop and focus on Him in the craziness going on in life and I am personally making it hard when it takes not effort at all. Jesus suffered and died on the cross for ME so that I can live and talk to God whenever without going through anyone else or anything, and I still struggle with stopping just to talk to God when it was made that easy for me and I'm taking it for granted. 

Today, through the craziness of your day don't forget to stop and talk with God today. Thank Him for the greatness of His love and mercy. Thank Him for being patient with us.

Pray with me.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for this beautiful sunny day outside. Thank you for waking me up today and loving me unconditionally. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for me and my sins when it should of been me. Please forgive me for not spending as much time with You as I should and getting caught up in life and not turing to You when I should. Thank you for  Your greatness and mercy. Please open my eyes to see the richness and love that You have for me. Thank you for still pursuing me and chasing after me when I turn my back because I want to do things my own way at my own time. Please keep me safe and help me to be patient today. I love you.

Amen.


Revelation 22:17
John 6:37
Ephesians 3:16-19

Living a fearful life

If you read my last post, you learned about how all my anxiety started. After a few months, things started to lighten up. Doctors were helping my family and me get things back to normal. One thing that we were told was that my mom needed to stop reassuring me. Whenever I start to panic, I will run to my mom for what the doctors said was "reassurance." They told my mom that she needed to stop reassuring me, and to help me realize on my own that everything is okay and I will be okay. Also, since I was becoming best buds with the school nurse, mom called the nurse and told her to put a big note on my file that said "DO NOT LET STEPHANIE CALL ME OR HER FATHER UNLESS SHE HAS A FEVER OR IS THROWING UP!"  I was so mad. All the doctors were changing my life style around and I hated change. They were making me deal with all the anxiety by myself and it was too much for me to do alone. I felt so betrayed. My doctor gave us a few different things to do but none of them lasted very long. We tried having one hour a day to where I could talk to my mom about what I was nervous. As you can probably guess, I broke that rule many many times :) I also tried to journal my thoughts and that didn't work either. The thing that I just could never do was pray. Whenever I was anxious and having a panic attack, I never thought to just stop and pray. This is something that I still struggle with and I have to be reminded of to do. Even then it is honestly really hard to do. Handing over everything over to God especially my anxiety is difficult because I am selfish and I want to fix them and want to feel better now. Not on God's timing or anyone else's timing. One of my favorite bible verses is 1 Peter 5:7.

Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.        1 Peter 5:7

I feel like this verse was written just for me. I need to cast ALL of my anxiety on Him because He cares for me. He is the God of Comfort and the Prince of Peace. 

I still deal with lots of anxiety now. I rarely can go anywhere in public without having a panic attack but I'm learning how to deal with it all still. I have learned that it's not going to go away on its own and I shouldn't be ashamed of it and that I will be okay. I have decided that I am going to major in Psychology. I dream to be famous like Oprah or Dr. Drew ;) I want to have my own private practice and focus on anxiety and depression patients, marriage counseling, or adoption counseling. I have many dreams and ideas in mind that I want to do, so who knows where God will lead me. I would love to help others with anxiety. I think that there would be no better person to talk to than someone who has or is dealing with what you are dealing with. I hope that I can change lives and help others to feel better and to go back to living a normal life. Dealing with anxiety is never easy, it can be life altering but just know if you are dealing with anxiety, you are NEVER alone. More people deal with it than you think. 

Thank you for reading!