my thirsty little soul

In His grace God has met me in many ways since last week when I was feeling discouraged. One of those ways has been thru people, caring friends - how much I appreciate them. Another has been thru Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton (she also wrote Sacred Rhythms and Silence and Solitude, both excellent reads). This has been in my pile of books-to-read since the summer, and since my soul was thirsty last week I picked it up. Here are some thoughts that encouraged me not to give in to denial, but to allow God into my "inner realities":

The soulful leader pays attention to such inner realities and the questions that they raise rather than ignoring them and continuing the charade or judging himself or herself harshly and thus cutting off the possibility of deeper awareness. Spiritual leadership emerges from our willingness to stay involved with our own soul . . .

What lies beneath the surface - of the ocean of our lives - really matters . . . what needs to be done in the deep interior places of our life is the most important work to be done right now.

In solitude we stop believing our own press. We discover that we are not as good as we thought but we are also more than we thought . . . If we stay in solitude long enough, we become safe enough with ourselves and with God to say, "Yes, this is who I am".

All we stand to lose is the false self - the adaptive behaviors that are ultimately in opposition to the life of love and trust and being led by God that our hearts long for. To give ourselves to this process, we must trust that our true self is hidden with Christ in God, to be revealed as God sees that we are ready to live into it.

That's only the first couple of chapters.

We all bring emotional baggage to our Christian lives. How good of God to love us and muddle through it with us.