Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

My intial conversion to Christianity was marked by huge, unrealistic promises that I made to God. I will read my Bible every day. I will spend x amount of time in prayer every day. I will never sin again. Etc. Because they were unrealistic demands that I was making of myself, I inevitably failed. I would then turn on myself, because that's what I do best, and call myself a bad Christian, a bad person, a bad wife, etc. I would then recover from my broken promises, only to make more promises that I would then proceed to break. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm calling yesterday my "second conversion." I can't really explain what was different about what happened to me yesterday in comparison with other times that I have strayed and then returned. I do know the difference, it's just hard to put into words. You see, it happened quite suddenly, without any advance notice. No warning, whatsoever. I was in church and we were singing, I don't even remember the song, but I know it was totally unrelated to the thought that came into my head, which is the one that I wrote about yesterday. I was totally convicted by the Holy Spirit in a way that I haven't really experienced before. It was like my entire life up to that point had been a dream and I was only just awakening unto reality. Everything became so clear. I suddenly got this strong urge to do more for my God, more for His Kingdom. It was like nothing else mattered anymore, as long as I could be close to Him. The sermon that followed oddly echoed the feeling that I was having about doing more for Him. I saw the insignificance of the things that I had been making a priority in my life. I saw things from a totally different perspective.

I mean, really, I saw everything in my life differently. I saw all of the ways that I wasn't being a helper to my husband, but, instead of getting depressed and beating myself up (my usual reaction), I looked for things in my life that I could change to help him more. I saw the importance of meeting his needs and measured that against the things keeping me from doing so and I saw that those other things didn't stack up. I saw opportunities to serve my God where before I had only seen opportunities to participate in something. I saw light where there had previously been darkness.

The most significant difference between this time and all the others is my lack of promises. I will try to do all of those things that I have promised God so many times before that I would do. I won't lie to Him, though, and tell Him that I'll never fail, that I'll do something every day, that I'll stay strong. I'm relying on Him more today than I ever have to simply provide me with whatever I need to make it through today. I don't need to know what is going to happen tomorrow. Today has enough worry of its own.