They say that the elderly have more wisdom than the children and I can only trust that it's true. From this vantage I only see myself growing more stupid, not more wise. And perhaps that's what Oswald Chambers meant when he said that "Your growth in grace is not measured by the fact that you haven’t turned back, but that you have an insight and understanding into where you are spiritually." I feel insightless and prone to misunderstanding, but perhaps that's the way to wisdom. Ask me in forty years.

I feel recently like my spirituality is in constant hibernation. Burrowed under folds of safety and wool, hunkered down for a long winter. Insulated and insular. Both/And. Disconnected.

Last week someone handed me a book, part of me grasped for it--maybe this contains what I need--part of me groaned: another book? Another answer? Another reply to this reoccurring problem of sin?

A snippet:

"One of Satan's favorite strategies is to come up with a close counterfeit of an important truth and allow the Christian community to spot the error. Christians then become so committed to staying away from it that they miss the truth it distorted."

"Connecting is not the only necessary ingredient in powerful relating, but it is central. It is the core good news of the gospel. Why? It's what we most what, what we most lack, what we most fear will never be ours."

"When you see me struggling, realize that my worst fear is that I'm nothing more than a struggler, that nobody can see anything deeper in me than my sin and pain because that's all there is, that my only hope is to sin less and to somehow feel better. Don't put yourself under the pressure to figure out what I should do. That will confirm that my only hope is to do more right things. I've tried that. it doesn't work."

And here you have the three bullet points that back me into my corner:

Distorted truths causing unrealistic legalism.
A fear of never connecting with anyone, really.
Pressure to know and do only the right things, over and over again, with no real ground taken.

I am beginning to see, to undistort, to connect. To not do things because I am pressured by myself or others, but because I am convinced that all truth is God breathed. That when He breathed on new creation, calling it good, He wasn't calling the law or the cross good--He was calling life good, new creation good.

But now I've grown beyond the walls
to where I've never been
And it's still winter in my wonderland

Jars of Clay