Oh look, it's 00:08am

(Stop being pedantic!  I know that should have been 0008hrs or 12:08am but 00:08am looks more dramatic)

Home group tonight was good, except for when we caught up on our Week 2 homework which was to do a "spiritual health assessment".  Basically just a questionnaire with questions like "I am growing in my ability to share and show my love to others", "I have a growing relationship with God, through reading the Bible and praying", "I am faithfully attending my home group and Sunday services to worship God".  All answers were from 1 to 5 with 1 being "beginning" and 5 being "well developed".  To start with, I disagreed with "beginning" as that seemed to give no option for having begun, got a good way along the path and then having been knocked right back, possibly to behind where you first started the journey.  I then decided that I really didn't like some of the questions (the only honest answer for the second question I mentioned up there is, basically, any negative number as I feel the relationship is shrinking rather than growing)

But then, having thought about what I've just written and what we were talking about tonight, I can't help but think that I might actually be completely wrong.  I'm not sure that, in actual fact, my prayer time with God isn't more honest than it has been in the past.  I'm not asking for anything or trying to praise Him, I'm just sat there saying, "I can't talk to you yet."  I know I'm sat in the middle of a cocoon made from barbed wire but it shields me and prevents Him getting too close.  (My analogy makes sense to me.  I am, mentally and spiritually, battered and bruised right now.  I'm getting better which is why I'm covered with dressings and bandages {hence why the accurate answer to "how are you?" following one really good worship and prayer session would have been "bandaged up properly for the first time"}  Anyway, protecting this very battered me is a huge spiral of barbed wire to stop God reaching in to heal me.  One day, I will take all this metaphorical barbed wire down and start praying and worshipping "properly" again but that's still some way off yet.

(One day, I will post before I'm ready to fall asleep at my keyboard.  Zzzzzzzzzzz)