The cloud over me

The cloud came yesterday. I’ve been fighting it ever since. Now I will attack it head on.

Do you know what I mean? Do you have days like that? Or maybe I’m different from everyone else – that’s the dangerous thought – the one that pushes me toward isolation.

I push on. I try to verbalize what is going on inside me. I take time to think about what is going on in my mind. What is the source of these low feelings?

Work has been slow, that wears on me. I’m doing all sorts of things to stimulate it. I hope they pay off in the long run; they sure aren’t in the present. What if it keeps getting slower and slower? I’m not sure what to do with those thoughts.

A big change in life has been that the church we had been going to for two and a half years closed last month. To give it a neat label, you can say it was a victim of the economic downturn. I saw it coming but it’s still been one of those things that you have to work through. We have settled into another church and that has been a very different experience. Our old church had 40 – 50 attendees. The new one has Sunday school classes larger than that. I went to a men’s get together last Monday night. There were around 50 guys there.

Here is something I read this week that capsulized my feelings with church:

When someone dies or there is another kind of loss or injury in life, we have to be able to work through that experience and move on, leaving our hearts available for new experiences and relationships. We get rid of the hurt and pain by grieving and then keep the learning experiences that come with it. (How People Grow – Cloud and Townsend)

That really spoke to me. I am so ready for those new experiences and relationships. I feel like we are on a new adventure. That feels good and I’m not a very adventurous person.

Yet there is still some clouds hanging over this. Some people who are very dear to me are still in the middle of the pain and hurt of this experience. They are in limbo, I’m not sure what is going to happen with them and that fills my thoughts.

Another thing going on is I have a son who will be turning eighteen next Monday. If you have ever been through that experience you know that it brings a whirlwind with it. Not the birthday itself but the whole period of change. The letting go, the watching of questionable decision making, the wondering of what will happen; did we prepare him for life? Will he take advantage of that preparation?

And what about my marriage, where is it at? I don’t even know where to begin on that. Is it ever possible to get beyond the accumulated baggage that seems to color every event and experience? Is intimacy a fleeting thing that may never return? What happened to my best friend?

The cloud makes all things look different; shades of grey, colorless. As I look outside now, the sun is coming up. I don’t see clouds out there, the colors are vibrant. There is a new day coming, a reminder that God’s mercies are new every morning. I want a sunrise inside me too. I want hope and anticipation, not another grey day.

Philip