*This isn’t a new writing but it’s relevant to what happens almost every major holiday. The up, up, up begins and the down, down, down, slaps me in the face. But I don’t walk thru it alone.*

Saturday was not a conquering day. I did not carpe diem; shoot, I didn’t even change out of my pajamas. What most everyone else calls the post-holiday blues is really the post-holiday crash for me. I know it comes every year, yet it still catches me by surprise. No matter what I do to prepare – eat better, more rest, have quiet time, etc. – the crash always slaps me down. Saturday was it, and that means I spent a major part of the day literally in bed. Not really depressed per se, but so exhausted that I couldn’t think straight. In all this I began hearing the same old voices that come with this downswing, “Look at you, you’re a Christian, a ministry student even, and you can’t even get out of bed; how much have you really changed? See you’re slipping down, down, down again; what a loser you are, every year you slip into this funk, you haven’t changed at all.”

The words hurt, but even as I battled the worthless feelings, I realized I’m not alone. The God who has and is transforming my life is right here with me and He doesn’t think I’m a failure. The more I thought about it, I realized that this was first crash in years that I didn’t think about just up and running off or giving up and listening to what evil whispers were saying I should do. So yeah, Saturday was a bit of a crappy day, but it’s still progress.

The lies are still hard to hear, but I’m hearing them with just the slightest amount of righteous indignation now; this is progress. To be exhausted but not slightly suicidal may seem like nothing to some people, but I know there are many, many others who realize this is a huge step. I can’t full on fight every single lie circling my brain, but I can begin to turn them over to Jehovah-Sabaoth. The God of angel armies can destroy each and every one of them while I rest in His peace.

Even while I feel like I’m walking backwards, losing the progress I’ve made, I realize that my feelings don’t always tell me the correct facts. The facts are that I am still a child of God; He will never let me slip through His grasp and it’s ok that each day isn’t necessarily a huge gigantic leap of victory. God loves my small steps and stumbles forward too; the race I’m in is fixed as long as God is in charge of it. Feelings don’t trump facts, and the ultimate fact is that God has won and I will too. So Saturday I stayed in bed way too long and never changed out of my pajamas, and I still won.