I have been staring at a blank screen for at least half an hour now, trying to figure out what to blog about. Several ideas have occurred to me and been discarded. It has also occurred to me to simply declare tonight a second Sabbath (why? Because I can!) and not blog at all. But I have found myself dissatisfied with that idea as well.

Tonight I am having what I call a hollow day. My energy is low, I cannot seem to get to the point of feeling full when it comes to food (I have eaten 8 extra points on the day, which for me is quite extraordinary, and if I weren’t on WW, I would be in the kitchen right now snarfing more food). My brain feels similarly hollow. No matter how I try to come up with a good idea for a blog, I don’t seem to have the brain power to make it happen. Or when I do come up with an idea, I don’t seem to have the power to flesh it out.

Some days are just like this. Some days it is a tough struggle to control my eating. Other days it comes fairly naturally. Some days it is really difficult to write a blog entry. Other days the entry seems almost to write itself.

That’s the way it is with the presence of God, too. Some days it is just like he is walking beside me whispering to me all day long. Other days I feel as though he is absent, as though I am left to my own devices. In my sermon today, I talked about the letters Mother Theresa wrote which were published after her death and which spoke quite clearly about her sometimes agonizing struggle with faith.

I am somehow comforted to know that such an influential woman of faith knew what t was to have hollow days when it came to her spirit. And I am inspired that she did not give up the work she did in Christ’s name and that she did not leave the church. Sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is to simply keep on, when they are not feeling it.

Hollow days happen. But God is constant and constantly with us. Just as I know there will be days this week – maybe as soon as tomorrow – in which the struggle with food and with writing will go easier, so I know the same is true of my relationship with God. So now I will put this hollow day to rest with a prayer for an easier time of it tomorrow.