I have been feeling the winter blahs here lately. All the snow and gloom has made me feel down. Supposedly when we lack sunshine, we can develop a vitamin D deficiency that can affect our moods. I think I have been lacking vitamin D. I usually feel it when I have forgotten to take my vitamin or my eating habits have been lacking. I feel tired and cranky. My hair stops growing and all my nails break. I can tell I’m vitamin deficient. But what about our spiritual vitamins? Do we know when we are lacking in our relationship with God? Do we feel different when we aren’t reading and studying our Bible or talking to God on a regular basis?
If you had asked me five years ago where I saw my life going, this is not the destination I would’ve imagined for myself. Five years ago I was living in Nashville and I was just beginning to find my way on my spiritual journey again. I was teaching third grade and thought that was the grade level for me. Now, I’m living back in Gatlinburg teaching Kindergarten and very involved in church. It’s been quite a journey to get here. I usually tell people that I moved back to Gatlinburg because I wanted to be close to my family and I really felt like that was where I was suppose to be. But honestly I was running away. My uncle had been diagnosed with ALS two years before and his health was detoriating. The relationships in my family had been suffering as we watched his health decline. It was too much for me to handle anymore and I ran four hours away from all this pain. Right before school started, my uncle passed away. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still shocking and devasting. I proceeded to close myself off from all reminders of my life before. I began to really believe love was like other four letter words. I started to think that everyone you love leaves at some point. That loving means that you get hurt. So I closed myself off to all possibilities of love. Not just boy girl love but any kind of love. I had a hard time relating to my students. They noticed that I didn’t smile enough and thought that meant I didn’t love them. I didn’t return phone calls from my friends from college or my life in Nashville. I wasn’t in contact with my extended family either. I buried myself in church. I started volunteering with the youth and children ministries hoping that I could forget about my own pain when I was helping others. But even as I was burying myself in church I wasn’t getting my spiritual vitamins. With all the walls I had put up, I was shutting God out as well. I wasn’t developing a real relationship with God because I didn’t trust him fully. It took a mission trip with the high school youth for me to realize this.
It was on this trip that I started to see the walls I had put up. This group didn’t let me keep my walls up. Even though I didn’t know many of the youth well, they forced me to see some things about myself. By seeing how they were interacting with each other and expected me to interact with them, I had to make some changes. It happened in a very interesting way. During a very heated game of catchphrase, boys against girls, I got angry. The buzzer had gone off me at least two times in a row and the third time was the final straw. I slammed the game down and stormed out. Real mature, I know. But I came right back in and kept playing. I realized that being upset about a game and showing it was ok. The kids like to refer to this as the time Kerri hulked out. They had never seen that much emotion from me. After I got home from this trip, I felt like a different person. I realized that I had been going through the motions of being a Christian and that was all. I was blah in my Christianity and my spiritual vitamins had been lacking.
In John 15:1-8, Jesus talks about this difference in our lives when we have our spiritual vitamins.
“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.
I was a branch severed from the vine and unable to produce fruit. Even though I considered myself a Christian and was attending church, I wasn’t trusting that I was a branch in God. There are still times that I am away from God and lacking in my spiritual vitamins, but I am more aware of it now. I know that to bear fruit, I need to be in relationship with God. I need to be reading my Bible regularly and talking to God everyday. I need to be spending time with the youth who help keep in check with my spiritual vitamins.
To really be a branch, I have to constantly be stretching myself and forcing myself out of my comfort zone. I can not be complacent and go through the motions. I was telling one of the girls in the youth that I was going to be speaking here this morning. She asked me if this was something I wanted to do. Honestly, speaking in front of people is not where I want to be. But I felt like I had no choice that I had to do this. By speaking here, I had to examine my own Christian journey. We can have life away from Jesus and God, but we have much more full and abundant lives though him. We produce much fruit when we are walking with God.
Are your spiritual vitamins depleted? Are you going through the motions but not really feeling it? Find where God is calling you and you’ll find your spiritual vitamins. For me, I feel strongly that I’m called to be a support person, to help with youth and work with girls. These are the places where I get challenged the most and find myself having to trust more in God.
Yesterday was the first day of spring. The sun has been shining and we can get our vitamin D from the sun if we get out it. In the same way we can get our spiritual vitamins from the son, Jesus. Just like you have to make an effort to get vitamin d, you have to make the effort to get your spiritual vitamins. Spend some time in the son today.
