Making Me Holy

I wouldn't call this a dry spell - though perhaps many would.  After all, it has many of the classic dry-spell characteristics: loneliness in prayer, feeling like God is not there.  However, I know that it is something more.

This is certainly a time of struggle.  God is stretching me in new directions.  He is challenging me in new ways.  I'm not learning this in my prayer. Rather, I am experiencing it in my life.  I feel justified in saying, "the hits just keep on coming."  I simply cannot seem to get on top.

It's nothing too big. Annoying conversations here.  Memory lapses there.  I've even found a whole lot of more-work-than-imagined mixed in as well. Some things are just constantly not going as planned, no matter how many times I alter the plan. This is a trying time in my life. There are many things I need to be doing to keep up, many that I want to be doing but cannot, and many more that I should be doing but am not. There is just a lot going.

The tricky part is that when I turn to God in prayer, I do not seem to meet a filling wellspring of faith, hope, love, and peace. I seem to meet silence. I pour out my heart, lay down my troubles, and wait. All I hear is silence. I know He is there.  I have no trouble believing that.  However, He is not responding.  He is testing my faith, teaching me to grow.

He is making me holy.

And it hurts. It's hard. To be honest, I'm not particularly fond of the whole process. However, I honestly want to place my life in His hands, to grow closer to Him, to live this life well so that I can be with Him forever in the next.  That means that today I will keep believing.  Today, I will choose to have hope.  I will continuing living and moving and praying.

One day, perhaps even today, I will thank Him for making me holy.