weakness....

Definition: An Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength.

I've been contemplating this interaction between weakness and strength...

how usually there is a relationship between the character traits and innate personality composition that define the very best if who we are.....and the traits which seem to lead to our undoing...

I've observed much...thought about what I see in others...

but (while interesting) how beneficial is such an exercise?

what I am focusing more on is this question: What is my Achilles' Heel? (or...horrors!...maybe that should be plural!)

it seems as if some people can go an entire life...doing much, saying much...but lacking awareness of their greatest needs. ~ I very much do not want that to happen in my life.

I think I have a fairly clear picture of myself....good and bad.

And I'm aware that over self-evaluation can be somewhat self-indulgent, self-centered...distracting from the very important needs that surround us. Still, tending to the soul is a task that never should end.

So I am asking the Lord to show me more...open the eyes of my heart. I believe only He is able to accurately increase my vision...clearly, I need plenty grace and mercy along this path.

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this past Sunday I was privileged to hear my cousin Jamey preach a powerful sermon...in essence, evaluating the soil of the heart in sharing and receiving the Gospel. One phrase that so stood out and has stayed with me goes something like this "God doesn't build ponds of grace"...Grace is better pictured as a gushing, alive waterforce that breaks through the rocky, shallow, broken areas of our hearts. It is transformational and dynamic....it prepares the way. (i am likely grossly misrepresenting this truth that Jamey communicated so well!) This is the Grace I need. I sense the waves of change and doubt around me...Who will I be, How will I react in the storm? (and isn't there pretty much always a storm approaching, if we are honest?)

How very thankful I am for this endless stream of grace...it supports in new times of self-discovery...it changes what is wrong, what is weak...if I allow it to flow. That is my desire.

"The cleansing stream I see, I see...I plunge and oh it cleanseth me!" (Phoebe Palmer)

(Ansel Adams, Nevada Falls)