Spiritual Dryness

It's been about a week and a half since my last post. I wish it was just because I've been busy but unfortunately, I've been going through a bit of spiritual dryness. Spiritual dryness is basically when you go through a phase where you do not receive any consolation, such as relaxation, awe, elation or release, in your prayer life. You just aren't feeling God's presence. There are a number of reasons this may happen.

I wish my reason was because God is trying to draw me closer to Him but I fear it's more because of me pushing Him away. Let's face it, growing in the spiritual life is hard work. It takes dedication, time, sacrifice, willingness to pick up your own Cross and die to yourself. And to be honest, I really have not wanted to do all of that. I've been busy these past few weeks. I haven't gotten nearly the amount of sleep that I need. In fact, I think last week from Monday morning to Friday afternoon, I had gotten like 13 hours of sleep. When you are constantly on the go, it's normal for a person's prayer life to suffer if they weren't attentive to it and for me, prayer doesn't come easily anyway so it was very easy to let it slide.

I'll admit, I've been lazy. I've felt that it'd be easier just to go the past few weeks without having to answer to God. Just let me do what I want. I don't want to take precious moment to spend in prayer when those moments could be better served on Facebook. I would rather call that guy a jerk or to spew my anger instead of being Christian to my brother. To be honest, I haven't wanted God imposing on me. The thought, "I have free will and by-golly, I'm going to use it"seems to have been my mantra. I recognize that this has probably been due to spiritual attacks on me. Yes, Satan is real and he does whatever he can to take us away from God, and I think I've been allowing Satan's attacks to work on me.

Fortunately, I think what has been saving me is a healthy fear of the Lord, fearing the fires of Hell and of offending God. That's been my reason for going to confession regularly, for going to mass even when I really wanted to do anything else but spend an hour at church. A friend's been making me go to adoration regularly which has helped also---nothing like quiet time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. The problem is that I haven't gotten the consolation that I seek. I haven't had that sense of relief after reconciliation or great feeling of love and joy after receiving the Eucharist and once I'm done with my Holy Hour and outside of the church I feel like Secular Jamie--back to cussing out the guy who is driving the speed limit in the passing lane (jerk).

Hopefully, relief is at hand. Thursday night I am going on a Cursillio--a retreat--until Sunday morning. I'm really hoping that a few days with no worries of kids, bills, work and other stresses and focusing on God will get me back in the saddle and come back next week recharged and ready to go. We'll see.