Apologies to God

Most Awesome GOD, Creator of all things and LORD of my life;

I come to you begging for your forgiveness. I have been a selfish and evil man. I have been praying for my will to be done and not Yours. I have lied to myself and to you about what I want for myself. I have stolen from You, by taking the time and income You have provided for me, and using them for personal gain or selfish desires. I have put other things before You and that is idolatry. For these things I offer no excuse except my apologies.

I want to be in love with YOU, O' MY LORD. I want to obsessed with YOU. I want to do YOUR will not mine. I want YOU to be first always. I want to give YOU my best, not what is left over at the end of the day. I want to trust in YOU more than I do my income or my own personal security. Help me to be the person YOU want me to be, not what I want myself to be.

Thank you Father for the blessings you have provided for me and my family. Thank you for my bride Jamie and my two wonderful kids, Caleb and Rachel. Thank you for the job you provided for me at Mardel. Thank you for Jamie's jobs at Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services, Children's Connections and now for the teaching opportunity at Stephen F. Austin. Thank you for the opportunity to help marriages grow stronger by allowing Jamie and I to lead a Dynamic Marriage class. Thank you for my home. You have blessed my family abundantly and I Love You.

Your adopted son,

Mark

Praying for Things That Cause Me Stress

On the advice of a co-worker, who works with stress & anger management; I am listing the top 10 things that cause me stress and I am going to pray for each one for one week! I am going to ask God remove any undue stress these may cause in my life. He guarantees that if I do this I will see a dramatic reduction in my stress levels and possibly my blood pressure as well.

Here is my Top 10 Stress Causes in no particular order

1. Food! -- I can't stop eating...I need to eat more healthy and less of it. This would also help my blood pressure and my high cholesterol.

2. Work -- I love my job, but the hours are often irregular and I do have to work some weekends.

3. My Family -- I love them to death, but every family has traits that bother you. Like not putting up clothes, dirty dishes or snack containers.

4. My Dog -- Back problems, peeing and pooping on the carpets and rugs. He is potty trained...why does he do that!

5. My OCD -- Why do I freak out over the clothes, the video games, the dog, and anything else that does work the way I need it to? It causes me to be very ugly towards my family and I don't like it.

6. My Dear Wife's Health -- She has to have some continuing test and procedures done and we have to budget to pay for that and I am concerned about how she is handling all of the stress related to them.

7. Wal-Mart -- I hate that store, but it is so darn close to the house. I hate waiting in lines, the lack of customer service, the parking, the blah blah blah.....

8. The House -- We really need a new roof, the kitchen ceiling to be fixed, new carpet and floors and some new paint. Not to mention furniture etc...

9. Our Yard -- We have no front yard! At least no green grass. Something is killing the grass in our front yard. We were told it is a fungus or maybe the trees are sucking all the water away from the grass??

10. My Father-in-Law -- Do I have to explain?

So starting tonight I will start praying for one of these things for 1 week, or do I pray for all of them for 10 weeks? I will pray for all of them tonight and check with my co-worker in the morning to get my directions right.

Prayer Request From a Crazy Man

In past posts I have mentioned that I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Because of this I tend to obsess about things to the point that it disrupts my daily activities. If I obsess about them long enough/or sometimes not long enough, I will compulsively act to attempt to remedy, or stop, these thoughts that just won't leave my head. To tell the truth it gets a little old.

I hate the fact I constantly worry about what my supervisor/co-workers/students or others think of me. It gets in the way of me doing my job as well as I need to be doing it. It also gets in the way of sleep, family activities and other normal daily functions. I just can't get some thoughts out of my head. If I get started on a specific task, the obsessive disorder will place that task above all other things until I get it done or someone stops me first.

Suffering from OCD is bad enough, but when you combine it with abnormal fears of confrontations, of any sort, and the occasional bouts of depression we all suffer from, this is not a good thing. I feel like I just want to crawl into a hole and hide until the anxiety I feel goes away. I am currently taking an anti-anxiety medication, but it seems like I have to take it every day or sometimes twice a day to keep these "crazy feelings" from taking over my life.

My OCD tends to be aggravated more when I am around large groups of people. If the classroom I teach is especially full, I will get "nervous" and overly irritated, or distracted. Activities with church groups or groups of friends will also have the same effect. I feel very uncomfortable going to a club to do a little dancing, going bowling or other group events. (Somehow going to watch The Texas Rangers play baseball doesn't bother me!) Because of this I constantly have to fight wanting to become reclusive.

I am asking my fellow blog readers and family to pray for me. Pray that God and His mighty power over all things can relieve me of this "problem." Pray that God guides me to the right people who can help me cope with and possibly treat this disorder in a way that I can have a more "normal" life. Pray for my family that they continue to try not and take some of the things I do "personally" against them. I love my family and I want them to know that.

Thanks guys & gals. Reading about your own "crazy" lives, helps me in ways you can't imagine.