Soul Chocolate

Today has been really hard. I give out a lot of sound advice. Putting it into practice in my own life...well, now, do we really, really, REALLY have to go there? Okay, I will.

Yesterday I tried to encourage someone who was despondent. I really tried. We sat there in the gray of the gathering near-winter evening and I did everything I could think of to cheer them up. I went home under a dark cloud. I was still carrying their burdens when I woke today. They sat on top of my own burdens and, because I deeply love the person I was consoling, the two backpacks of grief melded into one hulking mass that kept me ten inches from the floor all day long. I tried prayer, scripture, a nap, coffee and chocolate. Still struggling. Still brimming with tears.

So much of what I believe is awfully hard to walk out. But walk it out I must. Why is it that we can see so clearly for others what we cannot integrate into our own hearts? Maybe I'm just tired. I've fought certain challenges for so long that I am simply soul-weary.

But I am still down here on earth because my assignment is not finished. Oh, and that. I was listening to a teacher as I washed the dishes today...she was saying that we have certain tasks that we will feel unfulfilled unless we complete...chin sank lower into the mire as I have struggled with feeling like I have wasted such a huge part of my life.

What I REALLY need is soul chocolate. Yes, that's an apt description. Soul chocolate. That encouragement that only Christ can bring through the power of the Holy Spirit. Somebody pray that for me today and I will pray it into your life, too. I just need to be reminded that Jesus loves me so much He went to the cross for me. He is looking forward to seeing me in heaven and He is walking with me every single day here on this earth. I need to ground out the pity party like a stale cigarette and look up. He DOES care about the details of my life here on the earth. Like I told the person yesterday, King David believed that. He said in Psalm 27:13: "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed/That I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Holy Bible, New International Version)

Satan wants us defeated, discouraged and degraded. Jesus lifts us up, dusts us off and makes us worthy through His blood. And it is through His blood that we rise from the ashes of our circumstances and make a joyful noise to God through our praises and our lives.