Dark Chocolate Days

This week at work has been a "trudging through the mud" kind of week. I have stated multiple times that we just "need to dip this day in chocolate!" I left work Wednesday and started my list of errands. I had my detailed to-do list organized in "outline style" and complete with check boxes next to each task. Oh how Target failed me--nothing on my list was available at this location (mind you all the items were Target-specific things). I grabbed a much-needed bag of Dove dark chocolate and a Coke Zero and headed to my next errand. I marched into JoAnn Fabrics with soda in hand and chocolate in my purse. Then I stood, mind reeling, taking in all the glorious fabrics! So much I could make, so little time! Focus--back to my list. I checked each box off gleefully and even used more than one coupon--this was success! Off I went to my second Target location of the evening. Victory--they had everything I needed in abundance and best of all, now each box on my list had a wonderful ü-mark inside it. 

Exhausted from the week, I was feeling a bit better post chocolate, soda and fabric purchasing. So, at home I got to work and even completed some sewing projects--pure bliss! As I went to bed something changed; I was very overwhelmed with life in general and my mind wouldn't stop. While the evening was momentarily better than my day had gone, it was a brief fix. The thought of going to work seemed VERY unappealing (not that I am against working in general--I just don't love my job) and suddenly the idea that I have NO control over the future was weighing on my heart. I was done--D.O.N.E. (This might seem like an obvious realization--having no control over the future--but I would venture that I am not the only one who lives in this facade of knowing what tomorrow holds and how my life will look in a few years. If I'm alone here, I'll hold down the camp myself, but my guess is I have some company). 

I finally fell asleep but woke up this morning and just started crying. I'd had a bad dream and woke from it very abruptly. It wasn't even that the events in the dream were that terrible--it was just overwhelming--I could physically feel the weight of the dream on my shoulders. If I was done last night--now I was overdone! As Paul aptly verbalized "Sleep is supposed to be restful, not overwhelming." We got out of bed and in a brief moment of wisdom, I packed three glistening Dove chocolates in my lunch.

My work day was not shaping up to be much better than the previous three days (I feel like I should note that much of what makes work hard is that it is not where I want to be and as such, there are a lot of aspects that are frustrating). At lunch, I called Paul to vent and had a very super-sized pity party about work annoyances and my lingering uneasiness of life being very unknown. After my pity party I grabbed one of my wonderfully medicinal chocolates and decided I needed to have my quiet time from this morning. Oh, the wonderful tools the Lord uses to speak to me:

THEN, I read Psalm 22 (verses 1-5 and 14-15 really stood out to me):

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, 

so far from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, and am not silent.

You are enthroned as the Holy One;

you are the praise of Israel.

In you our fathers put their trust;

they trusted and you delivered them.

They cried to you and were saved;

in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

****

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart had turned to wax;

it has melted away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

you lay me in the dust of death.

This is right where my heart has been and in this moment-following my self-centered pity party and general poor attitude,-here at this perfect time, when I needed to hear from my Lord, He spoke.

Lord, you ARE here, THIS is for a purpose (every day, every conversation, every heartbreak, every trial)...and it's even dipped in chocolate!