Time For A Change

A spiritual change that is.  I don't know how many times I have thought "Something needs to change".  I think it often because it is true.  I am living my life with minimal contact with my Heavenly Father and minimal thought about it.  No, that's not true.  I think "something needs to change" all the time, but what?  I don't know.  Being in Germany was very, very hard for me.  It zapped me spiritually.  I got to a point where I didn't even think about God most of the time.  I was depressed, lonely, and miserable.  Not an excuse, of course, just the way things were.  I firmly believe your relationship with God should never be defined by your circumstances, but believing that and living that belief out are vastly different.  At least for me.

So, here I am.  Back in America, which is wonderful.  Call me crazy, but I am already feeling closer to God.  Part of that is because he took away my rock (and sometimes if I'm being honest my "idol").  Of course I mean my husband.  Looking back over this past month without him, I can see how I definitely depended on him too much.  Depended on him way more than God.  I relied on my husband to cheer me up, to motivate me to clean, to hold me accountable, to make me feel confident, to make me feel pretty, and to fix all my problems.  So, by taking him away, God has forced me to turn to Him in my hard moments...a thing I wouldn't have done if my husband was still around.

Part of me feeling closer to God is that I went to church last week and worshipped God.  Worshipping through music in a communal setting is like breathing air to me.  And I went without that for 7 months.  We did go to church sometimes in Germany, but the music wasn't what spoke to my soul.  No judgment here, just the way things were.  People meet God through all kinds of avenues, and the biggest one for me is the worship I cut my Christian teeth on which as far as I can tell, Germany doesn't offer.  I know it sounds funny to say "Germany" like I mean the entire country, but what I really mean is the American churches we visited.  I'll of course have to deal with that again when we go back, but I'll deal with that a year from now.  Let's not borrow problems meant for tomorrow, ok? :)

Sorry to jump around a bit, but to go back to the topic at hand.  It's time for a change.  I want to get right with God.  No, I don't know how exactly to do that.  I am committing to pray every day for my husband and I think that will help me connect with God since the only time I pray now is when someone specifically asks me to.  So getting in the habit to pray daily will help, right?  I am hoping that although I am praying for my husband, my prayer life will expand from that and it will be more intimate with God like it used to be.

Another thing I am hopefully committing to is to join a Christian Women's Bible Study.  I say hopefully because I hope I can find one!  I had a wonderful women's bible study before we moved across the ocean and it held me accountable for a lot.  But, you know, 7 months without one kind of drug me down.  So if I can find one, I will be joining it!

I also want to have some kind of regular time spent with God.  I'm not foolish enough to think it will be daily, but I am hoping several times a week.  This is going to take self-discipline and I'm quite fearful I can't do it, but I want to give it my best shot.  It is hard for me even to admit that because back in college and after that for a couple of years I used to spend a minimum of an hour with God evey day reading and praying and even singing.  How did I get so far away from that?  Life is harder than it looks! :)

So feel free to ask me how I'm doing because as you can see, I'm quite the open book :)