Stay With Him through Spiritual Boredom

Have you ever been in a spiritual slump? Overcome with boredom or malaise for all things holy? It can easily happen these days when church life feels stripped down to the basics.

For several years, I was running at warp speed towards everything holy. Then COVID-19 hit. Most of my ministries dried up. My weekly Eucharistic Adoration routine got thrown off. The beloved choir music at church disappeared. Someone I was getting spiritual help from stopped delivering it. Community felt non-existent. I started feeling exhausted each morning and couldn’t get to daily Mass. I yawned my way through rosaries. My confessions became more drawn out. I did not, however, stop praying and seeking God. 

Before I knew it, pretty much everything that spoke to me about church and liturgy became quite dry. My latest confessor termed it well: It’s like being stuck.

But then he reminded me that God’s grace is still working because I showed up in the confessional one day. 

That deeply spoke to me. I got to thinking that I was losing grace, that I was losing God, and that everything was shifting in my life in the wrong direction. I didn’t know how to get “unstuck.” I still don’t. I just know that I’m stuck because that word keeps coming up again and again.

He told me to go pray with a Scripture verse that comforted or uplifted me. Psalm 139 rang in my ears, and despite the many beautiful lines of that Psalm, only a single line spoke to me: I am still with you.

Yes, I’m still with You, Lord. Maybe that’s all You are asking of me right now. To stay with You.