the desert years

Last week when I went for groceries and the cashier asked me how I was, I was too fresh from my hard in-the-car cry to say "fine" convincingly, so I went with "all right" and as much smile as I had.  She didn't buy it, and raised an eyebrow at me.  I copped out with "it's just one of those days."

Well, today - another grocery run day for me - was pretty much a repeat.

This time, though, I smiled at everyone in the store who would meet my eyes, determined to make my own good cheer.  I chatted with the cashier and bagger, and smiled my way back to my car (where I repacked all my groceries to fit into the cooler.  Mental note:  next time ask them to put the cold items into the blue and the orange reusable bags; together, they fit).

I smiled through the library and the dry-goods store and the BK drive-thru, and then I parked my car in a shaded space at the park, and gazed at flowering hostas and neatly-kept paths and studied the light while I munched my burger.

Amazing, how the light brings things to life.  Grass in the shade is just grass, almost invisible, certainly not noteworthy.  Grass in the sunshine, though, is bursting with vitality - you almost expect it to break into song!  And leaves!  Well, leaves in the sunshine - especially if there is a bit of a breeze - are downright celebratory.  All that dancing and frolicking with light pouring through the chlorophyll in their cells and turning them into living jewels - !  I've tried taking pictures to try to capture it, but am never satisfied with the results.

I want to be like those leaves in the sun - full of life, filled with Life, and instead I so often feel heavy with cares.

Now, level with me, Christians.  Is it just me, or is life hard - even sometimes during seemingly pleasant circumstances?  Even with God?  

The fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control - do you often feel full of that?

I know some bubbly Christians.  Not intimately.  I don't know if I've ever known anyone well who was truly and consistently bubbly.  But there are some I don't know well who bubble quite a lot.

I'd like to be bubbly.  (By now, though, I rather suspect that bubbling is not to be my primary lot in life).

I know that bubbliness is not listed in Paul's letter to the Galatians, but I really want to know:  what should an earnest Christian expect her inner life to look like?  Do anxiety, depression, and heaviness betray a neglect of spiritual disciplines?  Does a lack of vitality resolve with sufficient efforts toward God?

Some people hint that if you're really Spirit-filled, you'll be sort of "on" all the time (or at least most of the time).  Do you actually know anyone like that?  Are you like that?

Is it personality?  Some get to be Tigger, some are slated to be Eeyore?  Is it because we live in a fallen world - nothing will be as it should be until heaven?



For forty years I've gone to church nearly every week.  My family has been Christian for generations.  As a new teenager, I raised my hand to accept Christ as my personal Savior (an experience I was tempted to repeat on numerous occasions, just to make sure I was truly sincere about it).  At the other end of my teens, I was prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I have prayed in tongues. I have seen God answer the prayers of my children, and have received prophecy over my life that has moved me to tears.

Why this dry spell, now??  Why so long, and so wide, and so deep?  I cannot fathom how God gets glory from my tears, from the barrenness of my spirit.



Later on the porch, resting after I'd vented my frustrations a bit with mulch and a shovel, it hit me:  I want to choose the fruit that the Spirit is working in me, and if I had my druthers, I'd choose joy every time.  JOY!  A great big old dose, splashing over onto everyone around me, spreading laughter and hope everywhere I go.

But just maybe, I've overlooked faithfulness, there towards the end of the list.  Good old undervalued Faithfulness - not much of a star in today's culture - plodding along there not unlike Patience, another attribute non-native to my temperament ...



And if it takes a desert to form faithfulness in me, what can I say except "Not my will, but Yours be done, Father"?


So be it.  Even Jesus, after all, spent time in a desert . . .