HO-ly Hannah!

Wow....

Well thanks to all the friends who have sent me love and hugs in emails, phone calls, text messages, and in person the last few days.  Apparently my last post made me sound like I'm about to jump off a cliff.  I'm really not.

Looking back over the last few things I've written about my own personal life, I realize that they all seem really dark and depressing.  And yes, I've been on a giant emotional roller coaster for much of this year, and especially this semester.  But things are actually good, too.

It's so "CPE" to say that I've been doing a lot of "hard emotional work", but the truth is, I have.  This semester I'm taking a class on the Holy Spirit, which I think is going to qualify as the best class I have taken in seminary.  Over and above Genesis to Revelation, and Gospel and Epistles of John.  And they were awesome.

But one of the primary themes of this Holy Spirit class is just how freeing the Holy Spirit is.  For better or worse, I'm one of the good girls, and I can recite "live not by the letter but by the Spirit" and "for freedom Christ has set you free" and "you have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not your own doing" backwards and forwards blah blah blah.  But apparently I forgot that it applies to me.  I am realizing just how much I have let "the flesh" - the things of this world - determine who I am and what I want and what I need and what I "should" be doing, rather than living in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

So I think part of my darkness and depression probably stems from remorse over that, and processing how to fix it now that I know it's a problem.  It's sort of like doing a deep-clean on a closet, or something: it might actually get worse before it gets better, even though you're on the right track.  And honestly, even as I write this, and try to live into that freedom that I have in Christ to be who I am, I can almost feel the spiritual warfare going on inside my brain.  The collision of the old age and new age, duking it out for my concentration and allegiance.  But no more!

The ruler of this world can take a hike!

(But I might need my friends to remind of this from time to time...)