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What if I will always be this way… (fill in the blank with fear of personal choice: self-centered, overweight, uneducated, unmotivated, debt-ridden, angry, anxious, apathetic, unfulfilled…) What if our family, this marriage, these children, stagnate, fester, languish? What if all tomorrows are just more of all our yesterdays? A thousand times I’ve told myself, “I simply must try harder.” Try harder to be more organized, try harder to educate our children better, try harder to be more after God’s heart. But I know it: trying harder only results in harder trials. Self-striving nurtures self-hatred. Toiling in the flesh produces foiling in the soul. Looking back on the trail tromped through other years, I can see that to forge new tracks across this year will needs more than simply sheer effort, gritty determination. The wind lifts the branches of the spruce trees that tower outside my window. I cannot see the wind, where she comes from, where she goes, but I watch a thin veil of snow, blowing in with her, going off with her. And the wind whispers with rumors from Home: to track new ways, one needs wind’s hope, His Spirit. His Spirit wind covers our muddled tracks. The grace of His Spirit, fills our empty spots, intercedes, and gives us a fresh start every day. |
