PPD Post Project Depression

I think I have Post Project Depression. We finished painting the living room on Valentine's Day. It was the best gift I could think of for my wife whose love language is acts of service not gifts. We really enjoy working on things together she just has to have the patience to wait until I buy into the need to do the project in the first place.

Even though she did come up with one more room to do, we haven't started it and I'm feeling a little low. The things on my to do list are pretty insignificant compared with stripping wallpaper and repainting five rooms in the house. It is more than interesting how, especially men, find their self worth in what they are doing. That is an especially difficult reality for me now that I find myself retired and only marginally significant to the industry that provided all that reassurance that I was a valuable asset and important to its success.

Its a false truth. It is true in that many men, and women I'm sure, find their self-worth in their work. However, it is false in that our actual self-worth is not really tied to our performance. I haven't read the book, "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell but in it he puts forth the important point that God loves us because we "are". He loves us just because we exist not because of what we might become or can do for him or his kingdom.

That is an amazing thing though it seems more false than true most of the time. What feels true is that God, and others for that matter, would love me based on what I am or what I can do for them. In fact, that is the case with the world and that is why it seems so true, this false truth.

Jesus taught us that we need to put more credence in what we can't see and what doesn't make sense in the world, because it is the unseen that is most important. However, knowing that truth doesn't always change my experience, I'm still a little down because my to do list is filled with pretty insignificant things.

So, where do I go with my feelings that seem so real, as they weigh so heavily over against the "facts", which I can't see - that my worth is tied to my existence and not my performance? I don't always know. Sometime, I can get my head around it and sometimes the Holy Spirit gives me the comfort I'm looking for, but not always.

Hey, if you came here for answers you came to the wrong place. I'm just the guy with questions, try one of those Christian self-help books, there's about a billion of them out there.