FAILURE!

Romans 8:1-3

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you [ a ] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, [ b ] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

FAILURE! That is a very difficult word to live with. I had to face that word recently when the expectations that I set up for myself were not materializing as I thought they should. It has been over a week since I was able to put some words down on paper and make some sense with them, then publish them in this blog. I knew what happened. One day I had too much on my ‘to do’ list to sit and write. The next day, I had no inspiration and no words came. The third day an emergency with my Mom tore me away again. By the 4th day, well, I was in a habit! You get the picture. Funny, it takes 21 days to imprint a habit in our lives but only 3 days to get out of a good habit.

I began the ‘you messed up’ self talk. I reminded myself of all the things in my past that tripped me up and caused me to fall short of my goals. My ‘self talk’ became self condemnation! FAILURE! It rang in my head.

Have you ever been there? You don’t plan it, in fact, we usually plan to succeed. Something happens that nudges you a little off your game and you begin on a path to excuses, I felt the spiral downward and yet I was powerless to stop it…until, I crashed into burnout!

Then one morning in my prayer time Holy Spirit reminded me it was He who gave me this assignment to write a blog. He also reminded me that He did not want me stressed over it and, the best part, He said I am not a failure! Another helpful suggestion He had was-talk to a friend. This is the friend I go to when I have blog technical issues. My plan was that my friend would help me re-structure the blog. Shorten it up so I could keep up with it. That is not what he suggested! After he had asked me a series of questions about what I wanted to do with the blog, he pondered a bit. I thought maybe he just did not understand my delima. It turns out, he was listening to Holy Spirit. Then he reminded me; The goal of the blog is that every day we look to God for ‘a little bright light for our day’. He reminded me that I had given people that little light virtually every day since March of 2020. Now that a good habit is established, maybe a couple days a week is all you need. Going forward you, my readers who are in the habit of reading an encouraging word daily, can continue to do so, but you may have to read an older blog, or go to the Bible yourself to find it.

Now, as we are a little more free from the constraints of covid, life has gotten busy again. I also have more responsibilities with my Mom. I will be continuing to write, just not every day! God in His mercy reminded me of the verse above…no condemnation for those in Christ! I hope if you have been in this place, as most of us have been, you will be encouraged by the fact that you are not alone. Most of us have had these thoughts at some time or another. Usually when we are over stretched in our everyday lives.

Please continue to check here regularly. I expect to be working on a different topic that I hope you are interested in reading…Miracles! I will start with those I have experienced in my own life, then move on to to those I have heard about from others. If you have had a miracle I would love to hear about it! Please email me at: donna_liples@yahoo.com All your comments are always welcomed! Blessings to you and yours.