the power of prayer...

is never lost on me. and every time I forget, God manages to smack me in the face with the Holy Spirit. haha, ok, God is never as violent with me as I manage to make it seem.

In my previous post, I blogged about how lethargic, how sluggish I was feeling. It was the first time in awhile that I felt so discouraged, very hopeless, even apathetic. I remember at one point, hanging up my coats that had previously swept my dusty floor, thinking, "wow, this is going to be my life for the next 10 years. 6 months of staying strong ~ and then BAM, a depressing tidal wave crash of reality: i am in the same place as I was 6 months ago...." It wasn't the fact that I was down in the dumps... it was the feeling of it coming back over and over again, even after I thought I'd conquered it. How many more times would I be climbing up only to come crashing down again? The inevitabilty of the repetitiveness of it all... it was just too difficult to swallow.

For 2 days, I slept, ate, thought the same destructive depressing thought, slept, and slept some more. all the while, pleading to God, "LORD, please, JUST GIVE ME A SINGLE BREAK. A COMMERCIAL. A GIG. JUST CUT ME SOME SLACK HERE."

and today, thankfully, I left my cave of idleness, went to the gym, and went to cell... wondering if, as usual, God would breakthrough.

and of course. He did. In fact, He began speaking to me before cell. For the first time this week, I journaled. While I jotted down my fear of feeling hope due to the inevitabilty of disappointment, I heard GOD's voice, "January, it is ok to HOPE in me. It is ok to be DISAPPOINTED in me. I'm bigger than all of that. I can take it."

Then at cell, after I shared (emoted really) my struggles with my cell ladies... God spoke through their prayers. I was reminded again of the MAJESTIC promise God had made me. Like Abraham, an entire kingdom awaited me. I had seen it. Even if I was blindfolded now, God was leading me through all of these times, good and bad, to take me towards the final destination, which was GRANDER and far more SUPERIOR than all the things I actually sought to achieve RIGHT now. "Do you really want the smaller things? Things that will appease you temporarily? Or do can you hold out for something GREATER? the Greatest?"

plus the fact that... really... the world's definition of success... of achievement... it is so so different than God's definition of it. In His book, I am already succeeding. I have already achieved SO MUCH. and all of it is so much more rewarding than this worldly version of it.

It's funny how you hear these truths from God. You see visions and images. You recognize God's voice and what He is telling you. And then you see all of it again... and it's just equally as amazing if not more, the second time around. I hope that later, when I reread these blog posts, no matter where I was in that period of my life, I can be edified.... and equally blessed as I hope you, my reader is, the first time I wrote this.

God, empower me! I can do this! I can WAIT for the SPLENDOR of your MAJESTY! Your WILL is grander than ALL THINGS I've ever encountered or dreamed of encountering. I AM READY WHEN YOU TELL ME I AM.

AMEN