I am big on looking back…and then looking forward to the end of the year.
I know this is way overdone right now, but I find it helpful since I usually am too “stuck at the moment” to really understand what I am experiencing when I experience it.
With the help of a great book, Fire, and Light by Fr. Jacques Philippe, I have been reflecting a lot on why this year of spiritual growth has been also so hard and even a little painful.
I feel like this year, more than any other, I have been forced to confront some hard truths about myself.
And I know I have taken a few steps in my spiritual life, but I also feel like I have seen, more clearly than ever, just how long the spiritual path is, and how far I have to go.
I was finally able to make sense of all of this with Fr. Jacques Philippe’s book.
He wrote an incredible section on the need for spiritual poverty.
I read directly from the book, and when I read that something clicked.
Yes, the closer you get to God the more you see your failing…and although I KNEW that, actually living it has been harder than I thought it would be!!
I also have been reflecting on what exactly it means to be hopeful and why hope, rightly understood, is so tightly linked to humility. Lived through lots of humility this year!
Thanks for letting me share from the heart this week and I hope you are doing some similar self-searching!
Links mentioned in this episode:
Have a blessed final couple of days of Advent!
Nancy