We’ve had quite a winter storm this week. I think the Super Bowl teams brought it with them from up north! This whole region has been iced over since yesterday. Most roads are impassable. All the schools, including my university, have been closed since then, and some will be closed again tomorrow. So, needless to say, I haven’t left home!
Although I worry about people who have no homes, or no power, or no choice but to get out on the hazardous roads… I have to say I am thankful for this respite. It has helped me to relax and to get my head on straight, without the stress of missing work or class.
What I need more than anything is to re-focus on my relationship with God and my spiritual life. Both have been a little… cold, if you will. I feel the iciness outside within me.
I’m sure it’s partly the usual pall that grief and clinical depression cast over them, and everything else. But it’s partly just me. I’ve been focusing on the wrong things and the wrong people. Getting my priorities mixed up. Lacking in discipline. And then, there’s discouragement.
Sometimes I feel like I have completely regressed and devolved in my spiritual life. That all the experience and insight I’ve received over the last 5-6 years has up and abandoned me. I sometimes feel that even God has abandoned me. I feel so in the dark.
I know intellectually that there is probably a good reason. Maybe I’ve been relying on my own knowledge too much, fancying myself to be wise, when in reality I’ve been losing touch with true wisdom, divine wisdom, He who is Wisdom.
I know intellectually that I will learn and grow and benefit in many other ways. Virtues will flourish, my spiritual compass will sharpen, my trust and devotion will deepen.
I know intellectually that God is still with me, just as close as ever, and perhaps even more so. A priest told me that sometimes God becomes so close to us, so entwined with us, that we can’t see Him. It may seem like He has gone away, but He is really closer than ever. I believe that.
I know all of this. But it certainly doesn’t feel good. I feel lonely and lost and on the verge of hopelessness. Spiritually frozen. Yearning for warmth and light.
I’m trying to think of it as just a natural season, like a winter that will soon enough turn into spring and bear fruit.
But it’s still difficult.
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2 February 2011 at 7:30 PM
Annette
Heather- I’ve been meaning to write my current blog for 3 weeks now. I drafted it last week and finished editing it over lunch on Monday. I hadn’t planned to edit it over lunch that day. It was just a whim. And I’m completely in awe now that we’ve both written about the “dark night of soul” this week. God never ceases to amaze me.
2 February 2011 at 7:54 PM
friesengroup
At times I think that Advent comes too early in the winter season. For me all of winter can be a waiting period. And, I too find it hard to be patient in the dormant times.
I offer my personal reflections – things that I know for me:
each day I can reflect and choose my viewpoint
endings and beginnings walk hand-in-hand
being told one is being courageous can ring hollow
change and loss are neither good or bad – they just are
fighting against “what just is” causes suffering
faith is the experience of willingly living beyond what is known
grace and hope show themselves in the love of family and friends
and, that Love is sufficient
May you continue to encounter faith, hope, and love on the journey,
Kathleen
2 February 2011 at 8:15 PM
Owen
“What I need more than anything is to re-focus on my relationship with God and my spiritual life. Both have been a little… cold, if you will. I feel the iciness outside within me.” I totally get this, and personally. I wish I didn’t but, I do. Prayers shared from this side of the snow laden Detroit River in Canada’s south.
5 February 2011 at 6:40 PM
Lexington
Unto everything, there is a season.
What a coincidence. I was just writing to a friend of mine, comparing the weather to an emotional and spiritual season.
Your insights are not gone. Perhaps they are merely dormant while you recuperate.
I wish I could share a little color with you during the dreary times. I would bring you a flower. My prayers and simple words will have to suffice, though.