Comments | eruaphadriel_: Reflections and Looking Forward

eruaphadriel_

Reflections and Looking Forward

Jan 21, 2012 19:29

Hellooooooo blogosphere! After the longest time away from LiveJournal ever, I am stopping in for a minute. There's no way to recap what all happened since I last posted (in May of 2011), though I can say I got engaged and then married ( Read more... )

grad school, junwen, spirituality

Comments 4

cosmic_reverie January 22 2012, 04:01:59 UTC

Well hello there, married lady! It was good to see you in December. Don't worry about not getting your paper done in time, it happens. You're learning and progressing, and I'm sure you got something out of just attending.

Just last weekend, I had a bit of a realization that woke me up to the fact that I had been slipping into old habits and ways of my old self that I thought I had overcome. It took a good friend to point out that I had allowed certain things to distract me from focusing on God. Last summer, I was soaring, having come out of my depression and riding along on the path God wanted me to be on. Then, as things started going right, I lost that focus, and my attention was elsewhere. That took its toll. It's amazing the difference life can be with and without God at the center! Good for you for recognizing it and dedicating this year to pursuing the right relationship with him. :)

eruaphadriel_ January 24 2012, 01:56:30 UTC

Hey! It was good seeing you too! Regarding slipping into old habits we thought we overcame...I think I am learning (being reminded actually) that "overcoming" them doesn't mean we vanquished them once and for all in a time period of awesome growth with God...They will be there again, when we take our focus off of Him as you mentioned. But I don't interpret it as a discouraging fact, but a human fact. At first I was really disappointed that I was falling into old habits; the hope that God had "permanently fixed" me shattered. But even as I sit here and ponder, it's kinda like the way our body is built to warn us when it is in danger. When we burn ourselves, it hurts like heck because if it didn't hurt, we might just stay in the flames until they burned us up. When we get sick, we have symptoms that keep us resting in bed so we recover faster. When we don't have God at the center of our lives, things start going amiss and we realize that our focus has shifted off of Him at some point. But the realization of the shift in focus is faster ( ... )

eruaphadriel_ January 24 2012, 01:58:14 UTC

My mind went off track what I was originally starting to say...Which was instead of a once and for all vanquish over bad habits, it was a daily surrendering of them to God...meaning we'll encounter them all the time, but have the encouragement that God will always be there to take them each day. (Didn't want to seem like a negative Nelly!)

cosmic_reverie January 24 2012, 04:20:51 UTC

You're quite right. The temptations remain with us even after making significant progress. It's so easily to fall off-track! Daily surrendering is so important and yet I don't often thinking about it because I get so busy! Ah, misplaced priorities. Of course I will pray for you and I appreciate your prayers as well. Hope to hear more from you!