Fog in June

June is a busy month. I should really learn to expect it, but it creeps up on me every year.

June is that no-man's-land between Spring and Summer, starting with a half term and ending with the rabbit in the headlights realisation that the Long Summer Holiday is looming. June for me means my husband's birthday, Fathers' Day and my eldest daughter's birthday, as well as some painful anniversaries: my Dad died nine years ago on the day before hubby's birthday, and his funeral was two days before Elizabeth was born. Nine years ago, June changed for me from just another month to an emotional cocktail that seems to pack a more powerful punch every year.

So I should see it coming, perhaps, but I didn't. 

May ended on a bit of a high. A Writers' Weekend in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, old friends, new friends, time spent laughing, crying and soaking up inspiration. It was one of those minor mountain-top experiences. Not an Everest of mountain-tops, but bigger than Ben Nevis. A Mont Blanc of weekends, maybe. I got some glimpses, scribbled notes and tried to pin down ideas, and came back home itching to explore further some of the things that God had whispered to me.

Some things about who I am/who we are as women of God, something about self-esteem and trusting the One who made us/about another way to live...freedom...peace...healing.

Big things, hey? Exciting! I was excited and energised. I felt as if I was on the edge of clarity. Not finding out the answers to all life's problems, but almost understanding that there was a place that I might get to where things are better than this. Where things I've struggled with for three-quarters of my life might start to be untangled and leave me a freer person; living in that peace that Jesus promised, that I've never been able to find. 

And wouldn't you think that right there would be the recipe for a period of great productivity, growth, spiritual exploration?

Some really good blog posts? 

Nope.

Just couldn't get going. I have a myriad of excuses; I was very tired by the weekend itself, the drive there and back, the early mornings and late nights, the emotional energy of all the processing, and of being surrounded by people, however engaging... I needed a bit of down time. A few days away from the computer. Too much to do, so little time. 

I find that I work through things best when I write. So often I start a blog post in one state of mind and finish in another; I understand things better when I write. I pick things apart and work out what's really going on and sometimes I surprise myself. I do this in my journal as well as on the computer, and so you'd expect that I'd be scribbling away madly after the high point of the weekend, wouldn't you?  As my computer gathered dust my notebooks would be jumping off the shelf? I'd need more ink? 

Nope.

That seemed impossible, too. Concentrating on anything seemed impossible. It all became terribly complicated until it was just too much.

Enthusiasm and energy leached away into lethargy. I put down my devotionals and started reading an old thriller. When I found out I'd read it before I carried on reading it anyway.

That just about sums up the last few weeks.

'Just too much' characterised June this year. Nine years ago I wept and wept and from a fog of shock and grief begged God not to let me go into labour and miss my Dad's funeral, and this year I've shed tears and begged God to help me fight my way out of another fog. He answered my prayers then, and I believe that in time He'll answer them now.

I don't know what's happening, but I know something is. I guess that sounds very odd.

I know there are lots of people who would advise me to stop thinking so much and get on with the everyday stuff, and I know they're right. I am a Myers' Briggs INFJ and I make heavy weather of everything.

I am not waiting for God to show me what He wants me to do with my life, I should get on with doing the things that He has already shown me I should do with it. I have a family, a home, school stuff, church stuff, writing stuff. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Yet I can't shake the feeling that it's a time of waiting, too. Active waiting, as a good friend said to me. Stopping, listening, trying to be still and wait until the swirling thoughts settle into something that I can see. I know He won't let me down.

So I'm trying to put something down, words on a screen, taptaptap on my little keyboard, fully aware that I make very little sense. I know that God won't leave me here. He is doing something - Aslan is on the move! - and perhaps He put His finger into the waters of my mind and heart and stirred them up until the pool is swirling cloudy so that in time something of worth that might rise up to the top.

I need to stop asking 'What? When? Why?' and just focus on who He is. There is peace in His presence, and I should nestle up close. Stop trying, and let Him get on with whatever He's doing. He'll tell me what's going on when He's ready.

I hope so. I do hope that the confusion and frustration of this month hasn't been for nothing; but He said that nothing is wasted. Not even the tears.

Well, there have been plenty of those.





Image credit:  whirlpool.jpg by pippalou
Courtesy of Morguefile.com. Used with permission

Darkness and fog

Oh, God.

It's been a horrible few weeks. Not life in general, horrible, but the me-and-you thing; coming here and exchanging the time of day, having something to say - it's just not been there. 

It still isn't. I've been sitting here for more than an hour and I am tap tapping at the keyboard right now just trying to hang onto the fact that you're still exactly where you've always been, even though I'm not quite sure where I am. 

Lord, I was in church on Sunday and we sang a song together and I can't remember what the song was or how it went, but it had a line in it about darkness. 

Something like, 'The darkness shall fear', I think. 

Darkness in this context clearly meant satan, the devil, evil in general or an absence of you. (I think I hedged my bets nicely there). What occurred to me, is that I am all too familiar with darkness. 

Darkness can be a comforting thing, I think. At night, I like it dark. I don't sleep well in light - I'm a thick curtain sort of girl. We used to live in a wonderful barn-conversion with a roof window right over the bed and it drove me mad. There was no blind or curtain and I resorted to draping my dressing gown over a roof beam to try and blot out some light so that I could sleep past dawn in the summer months. 

No, dark for sleeping is good. 

It's darkness at other times that I struggle with, and there seems to be a lot of it about at the moment.

It's autumn, and I make no secret of the fact that I find this time of year depressing. Yes, I can appreciate the beautiful colours, and I have my fair share of lovely photographs. I like the days when it's bright and crisp and there's a blue sky and some sun and a nip in the air (though I like days like that better in spring).

I know all about things having to die back to rest and gather strength for new shoots etc etc but look, I'm just not an autumn person. It's dark too early in the evenings, it's cold and dank and death and decay are everywhere. And I don't like draughts or Halloween. And orange is my least favourite colour. 

Did I come across just a bit petulant, there? 

In church on Sunday there was something more than the time of year on my mind. I've been struggling to concentrate, recently. It's as if my mind has been full of fog. Countless times in the last month I've been sitting here in front of the same computer that has been my close friend for several years and all of a sudden it's been cold and unwelcoming. I've done far more Facebooking and general surfing than I've done in ages. I've stared at blank documents until my eyes have stopped focusing and I've given up and gone to put the kettle on. 

Fog. Darkness. Confusion. Inability to concentrate. I look at the time I've wasted and become discouraged and depressed.

This darkness is a dense, insidious thing that wraps itself around me like the softest of shawls. It snuggles in close and at first look it seems to be a safe, insulating thing. It muffles and envelops. It's constantly moving and shifting shape and after a while I realise that I'm not hearing anything external, only the voices that are in my head already, that seem to be best mates with the fog on the outside. They whisper and nag and point out things to me.

There are several voices in there. 

Sympathetic:

'You've got too much on your mind, no wonder you can't concentrate.'

'Just give up for now. You're not in the right frame of mind.'

Accusatory:

'You're pathetic. You'll never get anything done.'

'Have you seen how much time you've wasted?'

Discouraging:

'There's no point starting now, there's not enough time left.'

'You have no ideas, no inspiration.'

Defeated:

'May as well give up. This is never going to work.'

'Why did you even think you could do it?'

...and others. But they echo in the darkness inside my head and I can't hear anything else. There used to be voices that encouraged me, cheered me on, made me hope for the best, believe, dream big dreams, but when the deadening darkness is there with it's arms wrapped around me, those voices can't make themselves heard. 

Yes, I realised all this as I stood and sang that forgotten song on Sunday morning. I saw the darkness wrapped around me. Soft and fluffy and even a little bit inviting - to start with, and then after a bit it penetrates deep to my bones and makes me cold and shaky and uncertain.

It's not black, this darkness. It's more grey, like storm-cloud grey. It's constantly moving, hugging, shifting, enveloping. 

I have a very bad habit of chewing my fingers and they're bad at the moment. I've been wanting to get a grip on what I eat but I'm feeling the need for comfort food more than ever. I have always found writing is a freeing thing, a wonderful way of working through problems, of capturing ideas and pinning down memories and, most importantly, meeting with you, Lord God, and yet for weeks now it's been oppressive and fearful. It has always brought me clarity, and yet when I'm in most need of it, I can't do it. 

Writer's Block? Ha. It's such a cliche, isn't it? Someone suggested to me that I had 'Writer's Block' and they even said it in inverted commas. Maybe that's it, but I think it's more than that. Here's what I think, in my foggy, muddled way:

I had an idea. I want to write something, and I want it to be for your glory. I want people to read it, and be encouraged and inspired. I told a few people about my idea and they were interested and told me that I should go ahead. I should go ahead and write it, and they would help in any way they could.

I felt excited and expectant and energetic. Full of hope, I had a new purpose and so many ideas that I couldn't get them all down fast enough. I have books and Post-It notes and notebooks and scraps of ideas all over the place. 

I thought I might actually do something.

Then the fog rolled in. 

I don't think that's a co-incidence. I don't think it's by chance that a million little jobs that have surfaced that need attending to on the days that I had set aside to get on with my idea. 

But then the voice (I think it belongs to 'Accuser', though it might be 'Discourager' - they're all the same), it says, 'You've got a big opinion of yourself, haven't you? Why would you or your writing be any sort of threat?'

And I'm back to square one. 

Why bother?

Lord, please tell me that I'm not the only person this happens to? I've read part of this little rambling back and I think I sound quite mad. 'Voices' in my head and the arrogance to put my own lamentable lack of discipline down to demonic interference... 

But I think I know about the fog.

Take it away, Father God.

May your light shine so brightly that it burns away to nothing like mist after sunrise.

Help me to shake it loose, Lord, and think clearly.

I want to hear your voice - the one that builds and creates and encourages and enables and equips, instead of those that make me feel bad.

I think that the fog is robbing me of tools that you put into my hands. It saps strength and corrodes determination. Steals confidence. Takes all these things and replaces them with heaviness, weariness and confusion.

It muffles, stifles. Lord, it stops me from seeing you, hearing you, sensing you here right next to me. 

'He wraps Himself in light

And darkness tries to hide

And trembles at His voice

And trembles at His voice...'*

Speak, Lord God, and the darkness will tremble.

Rescue me, as you have so many times before. I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get to this place. I've been immobile, wrapped up for too long listening to the wrong things, letting them seep into the heart of me and sap my strength. 

I'm not going to stay here any longer. 

I'm going to get moving. 

'How great is our God

Sing with me

How great is our God'*

Amen.

* 'How Great is Our God' by Chris Tomlin, 2004 Sixsteps Records/Sparrow Records