jesus-blind

Christmas is over.  My last blog was about anticipation and a craving for light.

Did I find it?  Or did I lose it, and experience subsequent disappointment?

Well, in some ways I felt like I missed it all together.

School got out later than ever.  I didn't make cookies.  I shopped for presents on the 22nd and 23rd.  I missed having solitude time with God from roughly the 16th to the 28th (due to busyness and well, oversleeping).

The third missed opportunity is probably the best diagnosis for my disease.  Jesus-blind.  

I'm convinced.  I don't just miss out on light and Jesus at Christmastime.  It is a year-round phenonmenon.  I am in a continual process of falling and getting up again.  The falling is of my own volition, the getting up requires divine help.

I wish I could make it to a place where I don't fall into formulaic prayers and lukewarm spirituality.  The funny things is, these things that I desire most I find when I am weakest.

When I am wrong, I find forgiveness in Jesus.

When I am weak, I find strength in Him.

When I committed the same sin that trips me up week after week, in Him I find grace.

This past weekend was a spiritual valley... I beat myself up inside over my mistakes... I swung twice and missed.  I looked at my blank journal.  Strike three.

My dearest friend prayed for me, and that encouraged me to seek my Father.

I started to pray again.  I broke out of my formula, and prayed about the things that were plaguing me.

I stopped worrying about my penmanship and what people would think if they read about my struggles.  God knows I am still being sanctified, I shouldn't forget that either.

I am at peace today, I saw a glimpse of Jesus.  My problems are shrinking in light of His face.