Tag Archives: spiritual journey

Journal Entries — Part 1: The Journey Begins

 

Well, it’s been over a week since I last posted. I don’t know where the time goes, just that it goes much too fast. Especially when I’m wrestling with something, which lately I have been.

For awhile I’ve been waking up in a weird mood, sort of down, yucky, discouraged, blue… I struggle to describe it precisely, can’t really find a direct source for it, though I’ve been having lots of dreams where I am trying to accomplish various tasks and keep running into obstacles, distractions, roadblocks, hindrances… A lot like my actual life.

The funny thing about the yucky feeling is that once I am thoroughly awake it goes away.

I read an article on dreams once – I think it might have been in The Smithsonian – that reported the results of a dream study some institution had done. In the study, subjects’ dreams tended to fall into two categories. One was where they dreamt of trying to accomplish something over and over and never succeeded until they woke up. Subjects who’d had this sort of dream tended to feel out of sorts afterward. And often there were elements of unfinished business in their lives that the dreams seemed to be springing from

The other category of dream was where the subject might dream over and over about something they were trying to accomplish until ultimately they succeeded and woke up. They felt much better than the other group of subjects. I think they might not have had the same sort of unfinished business in their lives as the first group of subjects…

At least that’s the way I remember it.

Anyway, it did seem to me that my dreams might indeed be echoing my reality, and that perhaps that was the reason for my waking up with the out of sorts feeling.

So this is where my wrestling began, and over the last two weeks or so has led to a spiritual journey of sorts that I’ve decided to set down here in my blog as a series of posts incorporating excerpts from my journal.

Come back tomorrow for the next installment.

What About Task Four?

Last week, in detailing my experiences with coming back to a habit of working on a novel, I mentioned I’d come up with five tasks for myself to be completed in fifteen minute increments. I told about tasks one through three, but left out four and five.

Task Four was to spend fifteen minutes answering fan mail, a practice I have been seriously remiss in pursuing for probably close to a year now. Every once in a while I would come in and do a spate of answering, but as the numbers of unanswered emails mounted so would my guilt and self-recrimination. The whole thing got too hard, especially given all the other stuff going on.

Now, I would tackle that mountain, once more in baby steps. Reading through the emails has the added benefit of reminding me that God really can use the gift He’s given me (duh) and I shouldn’t be letting it idle in the closet. Reader responses are tremendously encouraging. In fact, the very day I embarked on this new system I received an email from “Sandi,” which was one of the most encouraging I’ve ever received. She graciously consented to letting me post an edited version of it here:

Karen,

I cannot thank you enough for writing the Legends of the Guardian-King series. It has profoundly impacted my life.

I discovered your books during one of the most painful times of my life. The stories were so captivating and the spiritual insights so rich that the books actually helped me work through the intense emotional pain and spiritual struggle I was going through.

I loved the way you depicted life as the constantly challenging spiritual journey that it is — fighting the shadow within and the shadow without, trying to be steadfastly faithful to God down to the most subtle of levels of the heart, etc. You described it all so powerfully in LGK!

I have read the series through twice now and will probably read it again. I “soaked” in it and did not want the story to end. Oh how I would like to see the series made into films! Meanwhile I have tried to tell as many people as possible about the books to keep the word of mouth about them going. I hope this amazing series stays in print forever.

Sandi Shelton
Franklin, TN

Cool, huh?  Thanks, Sandi! Your timing was exquisite.