Discouragement 1

Barren. Parched. Empty.  I think of the desert as I sit looking out over our backyard.  Half of it is green, a carpet of grass ready for little feet to run and play on.  The other half feels rugged and rocky underneath eager feet.  Harsh rains and hail pelted us this winter and water would stand in the shady, low places killing whatever had grown there.  The grass got little nourishment from the sun and stayed bogged down with water, unable to replenish itself this spring.

Barren. Parched. Empty.  I think of a valley of dry bones as I sit, trying to quiet my soul.  I started writing again this year in an attempt to quiet my spirit, to take the swirling thoughts, the anxieties and the chaos, and mold them into thoughts directed at God.  I have tried to find a time to write in the last week, a half finished story waiting to be completed and posted to my blog.  But my soul has felt as battered as the dry places of our yard, and I have been unable to find the words, unable to even put myself into that vulnerable place of sitting down with a pen to put my heart down on paper.

All week long I felt like I was drowning under standing water, unable to see clearly through the murky mind and heart weighing me down.  The little storms that came into my life this week shouldn't have so thoroughly derailed me.  A spring cold made me groggy, then my five year old fell and got a slight concussion, throwing my whole week a bit off-kilter.  Work got overwhelming.  Discouragement weighed on me as well as I tried to push the date to the back of my mind.  I had submitted stories to two magazines I felt really confident that I was a good fit for, and this week the deadline to hear if they were publishing me loomed ahead.  Each day I didn't hear back made me feel a bit lower, a little more unsure of my calling to raise my voice for God in this noisy online world.[pullquote align=left]
I keep believing that no matter how dry I feel, hope is not gone. New life is waiting in the Sovereign Lord.
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Little storms, surely nothing that should have swamped my soul and left me in a barren wasteland.  But I found myself in the old familiar territory of anxiety and discouragement when I didn't cry out to God in the midst of all these swirling storms in my soul.  I wallowed in them, let them build up until they blocked out the nourishment my soul so desperately needed from the One who promises to carry our burdens if we will let Him.  The light couldn't break through and my words dried up, my attitude was bleak, and I couldn't bring myself to write the story of hope I had been working on.  It felt like a lie.

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