This week it seems I’ve kicked some of my “pending statuses” into gear. I hadn’t worked on anything istock related for about 5 months – since school started. These past couple days, I’ve submitted 6 images and am working on more. It feels good to get back my ability to actually feel like creating. A semester like this last one sends my mind into one track mode, where I just can’t tap into the multi-tasking part of my brain. It seems to shut down. (I did receive 3 As out of 4 classes this semester, so I guess it pays off.)
The second thing I started this week was a devotional. I’ve been reading and praying every morning – something I’ve been struggling with for a while now…
It’s like this. The transition to marriage was exceptionally smooth for Steve and I. Call us blessed. We found getting along and communicating easy, making for a great first year. However, spiritually speaking, the post marriage adjustment was really hard on me. Whether it’s a valid excuse or not, it really slowed down my walk. God really used the college group I had been with prior to change my heart and it was hard to leave that. All of a sudden I was in a new town at a new church. As it is, I tend to adjust very slowly to social change. I also tend to become discouraged easily when social situations don’t improve, then I close off. These things together work to destroy. I had also lost an amazing system of accountability. This college group was really like none other. Christ was so alive; there was movement.
But before this sounds too much like a “pity me” story, there is after all a lesson to me in that experience. It’s a lesson I still struggle to live up to. First of all, a person’s attitude can make or break their experience. Mine just wasn’t very optimistic. I took two steps backward with what I’d accomplished and took on the appearance of fear.
When I had first come to the college group shortly after graduating high school, I knew I belonged there. But I also knew it was a transitional phase. God sent me people who really reached out to me; who mentored me, genuinely cared about my life and even called me if I hadn’t been around instead of letting me just fade away. That kind of love through effort and concern unfortunately is rare. I had been to groups before who didn’t give a darn about me losing touch, including my home church. This is ultimately how I found the college group. They allowed me to build up so much that I couldn’t do on my own then. But God knew the time when I needed to grow and take those tools with me. Point in case: in the transition to a new church it’s been made apparent to me that I’m the person who now needs to focus on the giving, to be that person who encouraged me. It’s no longer about what I can gain, but what I can bring. I’m not among the wounded now.
Well, in order to bring something to the table, your personal walk needs to be in check. I let mine wither away into stagnancy. I was more alive when I was struggling with the sin in my life! Now that everything is in check, I’ve seemed to check out. It has been hard this week to pray, though I’ve been trying to live up to a motto; do the things you don’t feel like doing. We can’t run on our emotions, especially when they lead to bad habits.
I just can’t believe how closed off I’ve become. I feel like most every door in my heart is shut. I’m going to try with all I have to pry them open. Fortunately this devotional has been all about these very things that typically get in the way; negative strongholds, satan’s attacks… his lies can be so subtle and gradually deceiving that you wouldn’t know you were believing them. Amongst the biggest; God is not big enough. I mean, I believe He is, but my thoughts (let alone actions) do not portray it. It seems like in the big picture, I’ve been believing in God’s power – I fully believe in what He’s doing in my church, and the people He is working through, and I surely believe in what God has done. But when it comes to matters in my own heart, in the now, I fall short. I am like an invisible spectator.
This is why I need to continue to pray. I need that relationship, not just to acknowledge God. Even acknowledgment and respect fades with no relationship. And when it comes to God, we all know satan doesn’t just let it “fade”. The consequences leave you so deep into a hole you’ll eventually not be able to find your way out of it. I need to believe that I’m a part of his body and a part of what he’s doing in this world. When did I stop believing that I was valuable? I close off to relationships and shut people out because I believe I have nothing to offer. This tells me that I’ve lost sense of my identity in Christ. I need to allow God to pry open those closed doors; I can’t do it on my own.
This is not where I intended this entry to go, but nonetheless, I think I said all I really needed to say. 
