Overarching Issue

I haven’t had a hard life: I have good parents and family, became a Christian at a young age, and have not faced the outward trials that many others have.

Inward, however, has been a different story for me. My battle has always been a war within myself.  I understand when people express their pain and it comes out jumbled and everything at once. Often we cannot separate one aspect of our lives from another; when we hurt in one we hurt in many. Especially when the framework we normally place our lives in – our God – is the thing that is shaking. Most of the time it is our own thoughts that poison us.

All those things are screaming around our minds and no matter what direction we look, we have lost hope. We have lost joy and peace. I do not want to oversimplify or invalidate the struggle.  However, the overarching issue is just one thing.

Freedom. We have been saved, but somehow we are captive still. And it’s time for that to change.

Even Us

Wouldn't it be a release to know that we don't have to produce every second of every day?  Forget every day, even every week or month?

Doesn't something in us just ache for a cycle that follows harshness with a new something, a new chance, new...hope...

Every time I hear or read something about seasons of our spiritual life, it hits me hard in the gut.  Wouldn't that be just too good to be true, the idea that we don't always spiritually need to go-go-go, to look good, to make things happen.  These ideas about God that would be too good to be true, sometimes I want them so badly I try to will them into existence.

I am desperate for them to be true.

What relief I would find if there were times when I just needed to hold onto the roots of my faith, not look good, not produce fruit - just survive and feed from those roots - and that would be ok.

(Written 6 months later)

But then again, maybe I'm not trusting God enough to sustain me even in the moments when I am desperately tired and hungry.  Perhaps I need to believe that I can be used in any moment, despite myself.  It could be that the rougher and uglier we are, the more God's power is evident by showing he can give life to and through even us.