Coconut

Does anyone remember the fruits of the Spirit song from bible school?

The fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
The fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
If you wanna be a coconut you might as well hear it, you can't be a fruit of the Spirit.
For the fruits are : Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness and Self Control

After you sang coconut each time, you knocked on your own head. It was silly 10 year old fun, but dang it if I haven't been acting like a coconut.


I haven't been spending any time in the Word lately and it takes about two weeks for it to "show" (to me anyways, probably earlier to others). I've never had an actual anxiety attack, so those of you that have experienced that, please forgive me for this analogy, but that's the best way I think I can describe. For no reason, all of a sudden, I'm overcome with emotion and almost crippling feelings, of the need to just crawl up in a fetal position. Like I said, it's not an actual attack, and so (fortunately) I'm able to shake my head and snap out of it, but the residual feelings linger and then my whole day is ruined. I start wondering why I feel like that, what's wrong with me? Well, nothing, well, a lot. What's wrong with me is that "this *me*" isn't the right *me*.

An old high school friend Erin, put a Joyce Meyer quote on her facebook status recently (which might have sparked all this in me) "If I don't spend time with God, I don't act right." You have to hear it in Joyce's voice, which is not exactly harsh, but its definitely to the point. Well, I haven't been acting right. So starting back to a morning devotional today, the verse was Galatians 5:22-26. About the fruits of the Spirit. I haven't been exemplifying ANY of those. And as much as I would love to try and knock them all out today, I'm human. So I'll pick one. I see my high school clients today. So I pick gentleness and patience. I already regret typing that. Have you ever prayed for patience? Oh, God loves this one. He L O V E S giving out opportunities to be patient. Today should be interesting. So please, if you are so inclined, pray for me today, to remember that I ASKED for it, and also pray for my supervisor, as she will have to witness these encounters. As for gentleness, if you've met me, gentleness isn't really how I roll. I think maybe I compare it too much to gracefulness, which is mega-lacking in my life, but either way...I picked two hard ones. (side note: I didn't put a whole lot of thought into them, just the first ones that came to the ole coconut).


another side note: A lot of times, I will consider this blog writing or the 2 minutes it takes me to read the devotional as my time with God. Although the book isn't necessarily biblical, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is showing me differently. Man, this blog could get long...I'll post this tomorrow...