My Absence

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't blogged for about 2 months. Part of the reason for that was simple laziness. But the main reason is that I have been processing and wrestling through a few things in my heart in regards to my relationship with the Lord and I felt like I didn't have much to contribute over the last couple months.

Here is my confession.

I came to a point near the end of August/beginning of September where I felt like I didn't have a personal relationship with God. I felt like I had a bunch of head knowledge about the Lord and about the Christian life, but I couldn't call God my friend. My prayer life was next to non-existent and to read the word was bland and uninteresting to me.

I began to realize that I had a far off view of the Lord. I still saw him as a powerful and good God, but he was distant. When I thought of the fact that God loved me, I knew it was true, but it was more of an uninvolved love from that distant God that had much better things to worry about than my life. And because I had a distant view of the Lord, I had become very self-sufficient and self-reliant. If God was far away, then I needed to take care of myself and therefore prayer would do me no good. And when I read the Bible, I was reading the instruction manual of what God wanted me to do while he was off taking care of the world, and instructions aren't very interesting. I still saw God as my Savior and Redeemer, but I was just a face in the crowds of people that the blood of Christ covers. I felt spiritually dead.

It finally came to a breaking point as I sat in the Majeski's kitchen trying to explain all of that to Shelli. And as Shelli so often pin points exactly what the root issue is in my life, she hit this nail right on the head. I had forgotten that God is my Lover, just as much as he is my Savior, Redeemer and Powerful Creator. He cares about me personally and even delights in me.

And so over the last few months, I have been trying to reconnect with the Lover of my soul. I have been reading a book called "Because He Loves Me" by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, which Shelli recommended and then "coincidentally" we are also reading at Women's Coffee House. One of her main points in the book is that "even though many of us love and believe the good news about Jesus Christ, we rarely take that news as personally as it's meant to be taken." (p. 42) And that is a true statement about my life.

I have also been trying to read the Bible as a love letter instead of an instruction manual. To see all the little treasures that the Lord has written in order that I might know the depth of how he feels for me. And it seems like every time I find one of those treasures now, the tears start rolling. Slowly the Lord has been softening my heart and showing me how much he loves and delights in me even as he shows me more of the depths of my sin and my need for his grace.

I feel like I have come back to the beginning of getting to know my Savior; And not to just know him intellectually, but to know him experientially. But I am excited to learn how to trust and rely on him more and more and to see my need for him more and more.

So that's just a little update for you about the last 2 months and why I have been so silent on my blog. I will try and not have another 2 month gap between posts. :)

Thanks for caring about me enough to read my rantings!