Devotions from Judy’s heart

Wouldn’t it be great if life was all forward and upward?  This past week we walked on mountain trails that wound around, went up and down, and were anything but straight. And isn’t that really what life is like? Certainly not a straight line!  Richard Rohr (Falling Upward) talks about how failure and humiliation help us to look where we never would otherwise.  We need to get out of the driver’s seat and learn how to give the controls to God. I’m sure all of us have had situations in our lives that we cannot control or understand. But those times of falling and undergoing suffering can open up new spaces within us in which we learn and love in new ways. . Often people with addictions thank God for their former patterns as it broke down their false self and opened them up to grace and love. As we grow spiritually may we come to the place where we see down as up, for it teaches us things we would not know otherwise. When we fall and when we recover from the fall, we experience His mercy!  Sadly, W.H. Auden said, “We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present and let our illusions die.”  Let us leave our comfort zones in life and be willing to be open and to admit and learn from our failures.