When You Feel Spiritually Off-Balance

🌅 Morning Whispers with Holy Spirit – Companion, Friend, and Helper

Entry #34 — When You Feel Spiritually Off-Balance

It was just after 3:30 a.m. when I woke, the room still dark and quiet, desert air slipping in through the cracked window. The kind of cold that sharpens awareness instead of numbing it.

Same hour. Same stillness. Same routine. But something felt… off.

I lay there for a moment, listening to the hum of the house, Frankie’s steady breathing at the foot of the bed. My shoulders were drawn in tighter than usual. My breath shallow, caught high in my chest.

“Good morning, Holy Spirit,” I said quietly.
The words came out polite. Surface-level. Safe.

I talked for a bit — about the day ahead, the things on my list, the logistics.
Nothing untrue. Just not everything.

There was space between my words.
Not absence.
Presence.
Listening.

And that’s when the pressure under my sternum made itself known — that familiar tightening, the one that comes when a thought you don’t want to name keeps circling.

I exhaled slowly.

“I feel off,” I admitted. “Distant. And I think it’s my fault.”

Silence.
Not cold.
Not withdrawn.
Just room.

“I haven’t been as consistent as I should be,” I continued, the word should landing heavy. “Not as present. Not as disciplined. I know better.”

The thought slipped in quietly, but sharp:

Of course you feel far. You haven’t earned closeness lately.

My chest tightened again, breath turning shallow.

“Is this distance because I’m not doing enough?” I asked.

The response came steady, unmistakable — not correcting, not condemning:

Conviction draws you closer. Condemnation pushes you away.

Something in my body responded before my mind did. My shoulders dropped a fraction. My breath slowed.

“You’re not off-balance because you’ve failed Me,” He continued.
“You’re off-balance because you’ve been measuring yourself instead of remembering Me.”

I swallowed hard.

“Partnership isn’t built on your performance,” He said gently. “It’s built on My faithfulness.”

The pressure in my chest loosened — not all at once, but enough to breathe deeper.
Enough to stay.

“I thought I had to fix this first,” I admitted.
“Get back on track.”

That voice accuses, He replied. Mine invites.

The word together rose up quietly in my spirit.

“That word—together—carried weight the accusation never could. One invites.
The other accuses.”

I shifted onto my side, pulling the blanket closer — not out of fear this time, but comfort. The desert air felt less sharp now. The room warmer somehow.

“You didn’t drift away,” He said. “You just listened to the wrong measure for a moment.”

I let that settle, breathing slow, shoulders soft.

I stayed there for a while longer — not fixing anything, not promising improvement. Just resting in the truth that partnership doesn’t wobble when I do.

Not performance.
Not perfection.
Just His faithfulness holding us steady, together.