Dear Ones,
Happy weekend to you! Thank you for prayers for Jack, the doctor who has sepsis, pneumonia and flu. He continues to need prayers, and his hemoglobin is now only 7.2 and WBC are up to 28,000 due to steroids; but his chest x-ray is better, and it appears the infection is getting somewhat better. Please keep praying!
Devotions from Judy’s heart
When we come to know the Lord, it seems we often experience an overwhelming sense of joy and the Lord’s presence that may last for some time. But as we grow in the Lord it could be that we may also go through a time of spiritual darkness when we no longer have warm feelings, but we may feel rather empty, and our prayer life seems flat. At first, we may wonder what is happening. I have been faithful to the Lord, so why am I feeling this way? This experience differs from depression for it is rather the beginning stage of the Lord taking us through a time of spiritual darkness. It forces us to realize that we can’t make ourselves happy and we come to know in a deep way who is in charge of our life. It is a purifying time and exposes those things that we may depend on.

Franciscan Albert Haas writes about how we may fill the void in our lives by the empty Ps: power, prestige, position, people, possessions, productivity, popularity, and praise. We may think that these Ps can fill the hole in our hearts and make us happy, but of course that is not true. We can buy many possessions or get the position of CEO and yet we come up empty and find we have idols in our life. Happiness doesn’t result from having everything but like it says in Matt. 10:39, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Nothing outside of ourselves will fill the hole in our hearts, only Jesus. And when we hit a time of spiritual darkness, we come to know that having all empty Ps will not make us happy. Instead, we surrender to the darkness and realize the Lord has us on a deeper interior journey and we are getting emptied of idols and have more room for Him. We don’t necessarily know all that God is doing within us, but by faith and blind trust, let us respond and open up to Him.

Challenge for today: Each day open the windows of your soul to the Lord and let him transform you.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy