getting my attention

Illness and fatigue made me take an at-home retreat during the beginning of this week, but I was recovered enough to help with the flurry of Thanksgiving activity yesterday. And I think I'm up for making pizza tonight (people will have had enough turkey and dressing by then).

But I feel like God is trying to get my attention. Trying to call me back perhaps. I think I've gotten distracted by all the action and need here and so have forgotten something important. One thought that came to me during my rest-and-pray time was about handling stressful and challenging situations, and about how the spiritual life is involved:

A deep spiritual life is not required to make us strong in difficult situations; adrenaline and the instinct to survive can do that. The spiritual life is required to allow us to be weak in difficult situations. To keep us from despair or from fleeing. And make it possible to endure and keep loving though we are vulnerable and humanly powerless.

Looking back on this journal entry from a year ago also challenges me now, as it's hard not to be the "benefactor" here. I don't know what to make of all this yet. But I think I'm being called to some sort of change...