Did I peak too soon?

I was kind of a big deal back in my elementary school days as a Longfellow Longhorn. By the fresh young age of 11, I had already been:

*Elected President of student council;
*Voted by my elder class to be the first crossing guard of my 6th grade year;
*Star of the all-school musical;
*Winner of the all-school T-shirt design contest (my design featured Uncle Sam, shocking, I know);
*All-time record holder of the sit-and-reach in gym class (this still belongs to yours truly, FYI);
*Selected as one of only two people in the school to take the entrance exam for the double-advanced math track; and
*Recipient of awards/certificates/plaques from the Iowa City City Council for being such a super star.

Let's be honest -- I was an exemplary kid and rocked that school like it had never been rocked before. I wish I could say I have kept up with my record of excellence throughout my life, but as it turns out, I set the bar for myself too high to keep up with. Now, I'm just a normal girl who went to a normal 4-year school, got a normal job, and is living a normal life. No more excellence for me. It turns out, I peaked early.

I'm sure my faithful readers have noticed that I've been on winter hibernation from my blog as of late. Well, that's actually an excuse. The truth is that, spiritually, I've felt a little dry lately, and haven't had a whole lot of inspirational words to share. It's not like I've fallen off the deep end by any means, but, I just haven't had any quality material. I think this is in part due to Young Life and Confirmation being on winter break, as I find being a spiritual leader for others really helps me keep my own faith life in high-gear. But because of this winter break, I haven't been praying as much as I should, I've been acting prideful, and have felt kind of selfish with my time, money, heart, etc.

Regardless of the cause of this rut, I am left wondering, will this dry spell end soon? Or rather, did I just get my spiritual peak in life too early? Gosh, I hope the latter is not true. And I really don't think it is. I know everyone's faith walk is a roller-coaster over the course of a life, but I was recently reminded of how fervently I used to pursue my faith, and by comparison, it seems my spiritual engine has been stuck in low gear lately.

Life is good. Life is great, really. The holidays were wonderful, I am looking forward to 2010, my Hawks won a BCS game, my Confirmation class earlier this week was stellar, I have a solid new Archbishop as my shepherd, my job, relationship, and friends are all good, and Jesus and I still love each other. So emotionally, I'm great. But spiritually, I'm sluggish. I guess the first step is to recognize that.

Hopefully, I'll be out of this rut soon enough and will be back to inspiring you regularly. Until then, thanks for your prayers.