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Blog
Dark Days of the Soul
A friend once described a depressed time in her life as “dark days of the soul”—a picturesque explanation of the heavy weight that accompanied her.
As we approach resurrection weekend, I am reminded of the heavy weight that accompanied our Lord on the night He was betrayed. He knew He was in a vulnerable place and asked His friends, Peter, James, and John, to accompany Him to the Garden of Gethsemane and in prayer.
Christ’s Example
“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
What a tough act to follow!
Have you ever seen a little boy on the beach, walking with his dad and leaping to make his footprints match with his father’s? That’s how I feel sometimes when I try to follow Christ’s example—like my legs are too short, my efforts too small. I feel like I can never measure up... I go from one extreme to another: determined to never make a single misstep and beat myself up for my failures or give up and decide it’s not worth the struggle. It’s an exhausting pendulum. And I was weary—beaten down by life and my own unrealistic expectations.
The trap of perfectionism had a firm hold on my life until I crumbled under the pressure of that trick of Satan. I believed that I was called to be perfect in every way: holy and beyond reproach—that to be human and express the overwhelming and natural emotions that we face was a sign of weakness and sin.
My misunderstanding of Romans 8 and the condemnation of the flesh actually had me condemning Christ, who came in the flesh.
