Block.

I spent Thanksgiving in Ohio with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma. I had a really nice time, ate a lot of food, and got to to see some of my family that I hadn't seen in awhile. Pretty much a successful holiday. Also as an added bonus, I got to share a room with my little cousin. Being an only child I never got to do that as a kid. Now I refer to her as little, because she is four years younger than me (and she is one out of only two cousins who is actually younger than I am.) However without much exaggeration, if any, she is probably about a foot taller than me. So one night, my "little cousin," Annelise, and I are writing in our journals and she asks me what I'm writing about.

A few blog posts back, I asked people how they pray. I'm curious, you see, because I'm convinced that we all pray in a unique way. About a year or so ago I started praying via my journal. I am very easily distracted. In fact, as a small child one of my teachers had me tested for Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't have ADD but I often tell that story to prove my point about not being able to keep focus very long. I struggled for a long time in my prayer life because I could never seem to communicate with God effectively because I would get so distracted after about a minute of prayer. And so, I began journaling. I've always enjoyed writing, some people even dare to say I'm pretty good at it (including myself)-- and ever since I began writing my prayers, my spiritual life has improved. I still pray, even when I'm not writing, but I've found that writing to God is how I best communicate with Him. And so, when my cousin asked me what I was writing, I was praying.

Annelise and I had a nice long talk about, well, talking to God. I told her that I was writing my thoughts and prayers to God and how I had found that journaling my prayers was a perfect match for my personality. We also talked about being in a spiritual rut--or having a "block" when talking to God. You know that feeling when you just feel so spiritually low and you can't figure out why God's not talking back. Why He doesn't seem present. I said that I have found that even in those times when we feel that God is absent we just kind of have to keep showing up to pray and commune with Him and trust that He'll show up. And even though there might be a "block," He always wants to talk to us and that block won't be there forever. And then my not so little cousin said something that I would not have had the wisdom to say when I was in high school. She said, "Unless you let that block be there forever."

As of late I've been pretty discouraged. It's made it hard to talk to God. I told Him this morning that sure I trusted in Him no problem when the going got rough, but it's been a real struggle since the going stayed rough. After all nothing's been going my way... shouldn't I pout? But you see, just as my cousin pointed out, when we get stuck--really stuck, is when we refuse to move on. When we let our "block," our rut, win. When we give into discouragement or whatever it is. And so I ask you. What is your rut? Your block? And what are you going to do about it?