I Am a Basket Case

When it comes down to it I am a basket case. There are things I obsess over and when I get upset I find myself screaming inside my head. Sometimes I have an “Ally McBeal” moment and accidentally scream out loud. There is usually no legitimate reason for me to scream so this tends to make other people stare and back away slowly.

I don’t know about you, but I am easily frustrated. I gravitate toward locking myself away in my room and pouting when things do not go my way. I often feel like even if I told someone all the things that are making me crazy at that moment I would get the “Yes, but you are so blessed, just think of all the starving children in the world” speech instead of “Oh I totally get that and you are definitely not crazy!” statement of confirmation. 

This lack of self-control is an issue for me. It makes writing difficult and it makes me seem like a flake. Since there are plenty of Christian cereal boxes (full of nuts and flakes) out there, I have to get this under control. 

So when I feel like I could benefit from some Hollywood-big-budget-B-movie-primal scream, what should I do instead? I should pray. I should get as still as I can and praise and worship God.

This is what is called a sacrifice of praise. 

Psalms 54:6 says “I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O LORD; for it is good.”


Hebrews 13:15 says “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”

In Isaiah God says He gives us a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.


You have to put on garments. Gaments don’t just magically appear on your body. If they did, I would never have been caught out in public in my Betty Boop PJ bottoms. (Hey, they are comfy!) If garments magically appeared on me, I would be in designer clothes and look like a shorter version of Khloe Kardashian.


Putting on a garment of praise when you’re in a funk may be akin to putting on a horsehair collar in the middle of July: totally unnatural, but, the benefit of coming into God’s presence far outweighs the temporary discomfort.


So I will sacrifice my mood, my bad attitude, my discomfort, my I-can’t-hear-anything-else-because-I-am-screaming-in-my-head moment, and I will focus on the thing that matters most: My Father. 

After all, He sacrificed it all for me, right?