I keep fighting the waves that rise up and wash over me, threatening to take me down under with them as they fall. It's hard. They always take me by surprise, the voices that remind me constantly that I'm not good enough, not efficient enough, not smart enough, not thorough enough, not competent enough, not producing enough... failing, failing, failing, failing. And then I come in to work and get reminded again, but it's no longer the voices in my head talking. They're real voices and their criticism is constant. I don't blame them because they're right -- I constantly screw up. The email, the photocopying, the computer, the responses to people. It's always the wrong thing and I can't help but wonder if I'm missing (or ignoring) the message here -- are all these things happening so I'll leave? So I'll go to Africa? Or somewhere else? I'm scared though. How can I do that? I have a 2 year old child... Yesterday, I was gently asked by my immediate supervisor if I had considered that maybe God wanted me to be in service elsewhere. I know he desperately wants a better assistant and cannot legally ask me to leave, but he's offered me the option of finding other things to do often enough now that I can't pretend like it's all a coincidence. I feel so defeated. How did my life become the sum total of my failures? When did I become such a disappointment? What can I do about it? No matter how hard I try, it's still spiralling downward. I keep flopping myself into God's arms but I don't see what I'm supposed to do. Lord, my life is a mess.

This morning, I was standing drying Josh off after a shower, and he was laughing and wiggling and asking me to cuddle him, and I added to my depression and sense of failure a heavy dose of guilt. Here is this perfect little untouched person, and he is going to be saddled with all of my neuroses and messed up because of all of my instability and GOD! God!!! Please protect him! The voice quickly switched over -- why can't you get it together for your son? At least don't fail him... but everything I touch turns to shit. How can I not destroy him as well?

I'm so self-pitying. I make myself sick. Further failure.