Down, down, down

I've been in a down mood lately. I'm trying to do all the things I normally do to keep myself up...get plenty of sunshine, keep the kitchen clean, smile a lot, interact with people, pray, go to church. I try to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. I walk a lot. I listen to uplifting music.

The truth is the "inner voices" are winning this week. (No, I'm not schizophrenic, at least not yet.) My old friend discouragement keeps visiting, telling me what a failure I am. I'll never be a good Christian or a good mormon, a good mom, a good anything. I can't even keep my car clean, the yard tidy. I'm a terrible missionary. I have so many projects that need attention that I just can't breathe some days, yet I rarely seem to finish anything, and when I do, there are ten more things that were just added to my list. I've never been any good to anyone and never will be. I'll never find anyone who will love me besides my kids, and they love me partly because they kind of have to.

People tell me that all I have to do is the best I can do. Can I be honest? That's the problem, isn't it? No one ever does the best they can do. Maybe for one little area of their life. Maybe for one day. But doing my best is unsustainable for long, isn't it? I can only put my best effort into one thing at a time, not everything at once. I fail at doing my best.

I guess if I didn't feel that there wasn't some small kernel of truth in each of those thoughts (or a big one in some cases), then the thoughts wouldn't be so compelling. And the bigger truths that I cling to each day, like that I am a daughter of God, families are forever, that if I keep trying to do what's right that I can eventually gain God's promised blessings...those hopes seem so pie in the sky and so far removed from my life that I just can't conceive of it. It's a good thing that I know that God is a God of truth, or I'd give up altogether.

Still, because I know discouragement is a tool of the devil, I'm trying to breathe, to keep my head above water, and most of all believe. A friend told me once if Satan is paying that much attention to you, you better hang on tighter, because there's a big blessing just around the corner, and he wants to keep you from seeing it, from receiving it.

I sure hope he was right.