My Epiphany

• Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies

Today, January 6th, is the Feast of Epiphany--the day we celebrate the revelation of the Christ child to the world; the day we commemorate the arrival of the Magi--the wise men--at the manger.

There is another, more general, definition of "epiphany", and it reads "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience". Basically--what we call "a light bulb moment"

I experienced an epiphany of sorts while I was at home--several of them, in fact--moments of "sudden, intuitive perception" and "insight into...reality or essential meaning".

I've been struggling with several issues for months now--some physical, some spiritual, some emotional. Why does it take so long sometimes to realize/admit that it can sometimes all be related?

As much as I had been looking forward do going home for the holidays, for some reason everything seemed to come to a head the first week we were there. I don't want to go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that it was horrid. Nothing seemed to be going right. No matter how hard I tried and what I did or didn't do, it never seemed to be right. I found myself crying a couple of times--and wishing I had the time and the privacy to cry a couple of more times.

Part of the problem was, I wasn't right. I've been hiding from some things, instead of doing the hard work and addressing them--burying my head in the sand, thinking everything would just go away. Guess what? That doesn't really work!

And I'd like to say that I had one big moment of epiphany and then everything turned around. But it was more like several small moments of clarity, that combined, added up to the equivalent of one big light bulb moment.

At each instance, I found a moment of calm; of insight and clear thought; a still, small voice that spoke nuggets of truth into my spirit that were so profound--and absolutely nothing that I didn't already know before.

The Lord is gracious that way. He gently reminds of Truths, usually when we've tried so hard to make it on our own, and finally reach the rock bottom of our strength.

As a matter of fact, that's how He works. As long as we depend on ourselves, we're like the 90 pound weakling in those funny old advertisements. And the Lord is the big strong guy--only instead of kicking sand on us, He stops and picks us up and takes us where we need to go.

Remember?

"My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

That's part of 2 Corinthians 12:9, by the way.

Nothing I didn't already know. But knowing is not always the same as knowing that I know that I know.

You know?

I'll be sharing a little more about my light bulb moment--my epiphany--my "sudden, intuitive perception of" or "insight into the reality or essential meaning of something", "usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience". If it results in light bulb moment, I'd say not-so-commonplace.

Until next time...