Road to Renewal

The thick fog and gray clouds that blan­ket the skies out­side my win­dow seem to be the per­fect reflec­tion of the cur­rent state of my heart. It’s just been one of those weeks, one of those foggy gray weeks. I’ve recently dis­cov­ered that my cre­ativ­ity gets hid­den under­neath the clouds hov­er­ing over my heart. I can’t see through the thick layer to find my cre­ativ­ity. That’s why you haven’t heard much from me this week. I thought about not writ­ing so that I wouldn’t put a damper on some­one else’s day, but then I real­ized what a silly rea­son that would be not to write. I’ve vowed to myself and to God to do my best to be an authen­tic per­son. The more authen­tic you are, the more peo­ple can relate to you. It’s when we try to be some­one we’re not that peo­ple can’t con­nect because there is noth­ing real to con­nect with.

Today we’re head­ing on a road trip to Sacra­mento to visit Vitaliy’s rel­a­tives. It’s per­fect tim­ing because being on the road for me is quite ther­a­peu­tic. Vitaliy and I have so much time alone to talk, dis­cuss, pray, and read­just. Renew. A renewal is what we need and God knew this. Last night our pas­tor was teach­ing on renewal. It spoke to my heart and Vitaliy’s and we went home very uncom­fort­able and unhappy because every­thing he said was true. Our hearts and our minds need to be renewed. It’s 8 days into the New Year and it’s not look­ing much dif­fer­ently than 2009. My pri­or­i­ties are all out of line and life will con­tinue to con­trol me until we make some much needed changes. I’m shar­ing this with you today in case you are in the same boat. Don’t let another year go by not liv­ing it the way you were cre­ated to live it. You and I both know that Christ­mas will be here before we know it. I don’t want to be hav­ing this same con­ver­sa­tion with myself then. I don’t think you do either. So here we go on the road to renewal. Want to come along for the ride?