For the first time in years i did not choose a word for this year. Not for lack of thinking about it, i pondered for weeks. It is just that nothing felt right.
Of course, the fact that my life is just drifting a little at the moment may have something to do with it. Not necessarily drifting in a bad way, sometimes we need to drift a little after having been pulled by the currents of life, just to spend some time resting. recovering. reflecting. Sometimes drifting is learning to trust the river.
But before i drift off too far, back to the topic.
For the last 2 years or more, i have been experiencing huge anxiety. The kind that causes sleepless nights and heart palpitations and sore necks and shoulders. The kind that needs medication. The kind that causes me to question God. And i have been trying to change things. Last year my word was ‘overcome’, which was all about my attempts to conquer those issues that cause me the anxiety.
And changing things is good. Of course. And it has helped. A little. I could write an entire blogpost about what i have changed, the biggest thing is of course the fact that i closed my shop. But that is not what this post is about.
“She was beginning to understand that there was a big difference between danger and fear.”
For a few months now, something inside me has been telling me that although dealing with the physical issues in my life is necessary, i also need to challenge my thinking about it. God has been whispering in my heart for months now. Mike has been echoing that message to me for a long time too. But since the beginning of this year, this message has been coming to me from all directions.
“She had no choice. Either she believed in God, in her Guardian Angel, or she despaired.”
On the first Sunday of 2011, in church, it seemed as though the word ‘Trust’ kept jumping out at me. Everywhere i found it, in the hymns, in the reading. And so, then and there, during the service, i pledged to learn to trust God this year.
Francois’ friend Emily read a book called Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong: A Guide to Life Liberated from Anxiety (10 Simple Solutions) by Kelly G. Wilson, Troy Dufrene , and she and i briefly discussed it. It is about dealing with anxiety: "the ACT approach offered in this book is not about constantly arguing against your anxiety-provoking thoughts to defeat anxiety once and for all, but instead it's about how to cope with your anxiety and how to continue to live a full and satisfied life, even *while* feeling anxiety. The point of this book is not to eliminate anxiety altogether, but to stop anxiety from limiting your possibilities in life" (Emily's words).
On my beloved BlackBerry, i found a Bible app {youversion} that also offers Bible study plans. Of the many i could choose from, i thought i would start with a 14 day plan called ‘Should life hurt this bad?’ Earlier this week, Mike asked me how the plan was going, and i replied that unfortunately the answer was “Yes. Life should hurt this bad”.
“The night is just a part of the day,’ he would say. The night is just a part of the day. Therefore she could feel as safe in the dark as she did in the light. It was the dark that had made her invoke that protective presence. She must trust it. And that trust was called Faith. No one could ever understand Faith, but Faith was what she was experiencing now, an inexplicable immersion in blackest night. It only existed because she believed in it“.
You see, i HAVE had bad times before. I have had WORSE times before. And i did find the answers during that time. And the answers this time have remained the same. There is nothing new in that study plan. But i needed to be reminded.
“She had faith. And faith wouldn’t allow the forest to be peopled again with scorpions and snakes. Faith would keep her Guardian Angel awake and watching”.
So, my word for 2011 is TRUST.
“I learned about the Dark Night, she said to the now silent forest. I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that is hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet we still go forwards. Because we trust. Because we have Faith. Or, who knows, perhaps because we just don’t see the mystery contained in the next second. Not that it mattered. What mattered was knowing that she had understood. That every moment in life is an act of faith. That you could choose to fill it with snakes and scorpions or with a strong protecting force. That Faith cannot be explained. It was simply a Dark Night. All she had to do was to accept it or not”.
All the italics are passages from the book ‘Brida’, by Paulo Coelho.
This post is dedicated to my dear friend Stefan Diedericks, who is completely unaware of how often God has used him these last few months, and especially one rainy day over juice in Eastgate. God has used his voice, his tweets, his annoying positivity and constant cheer, and his wisdom gained from personal experience, to encourage me, and to shine His light over the rocky path that is this journey.
I have also been reminded that shining God’s light into the lives of others does not mean admonishing, preaching or judging. It entails saying out loud what God whispers into our hearts, because we do not know who needs to hear it. And it does not mean living a life devoid of sin, it entails living a life filled with Gods joy and light, because we do not know who needs to see it.
