The 11th Time is a Charm?

I have written and deleted perhaps 10 blogs this morning. I really ought not to try to write on gloomy days such as this. The sun it seems is my muse, without it I slip into a kind of sadness that squelches creativity. I am determined that in future I will write on other days and then simply post on Fridays.

It is funny (not in a ha! ha! way) that outward gloom so quickly seeps into my inner world, but it does. I suspect I am not alone in this. Normally I cope by getting active, Doing things rather than thinking about things is the ticket for such days.

On days like this I feel stuck in the first part of one of David’s Psalms. I know that by the end the lament will end, and end in praise. The praise itself may be all the sweeter because of this pause in the ‘valley of lament’. Intellectually I know and assert all the same truths I espouse in the sunshine. God does not change but I do. My changeableness is not sin but rather fact. I do not choose to be ‘down’ but I am down. In the past I have been resentful against people who glibly tell me to cheer up as if I chose this. I know though that they intend me well.

Today I peck away at these keys from the mire of this stuckness. I do so not wanting to drag anyone down but simply to acknowledge the truth and say I will yet praise God in the land of the living.

Lament is the very spot where we most need hope. It is here that we hold onto that hope as onto a rope cast to us in a stormy sea. It is because I experience the power of hope in this place that I can confidently recommend it to my friends, many of whom sail much stormier seas.

I just checked and found that I am nearing my 400 word minimum for this post. I’ve decided not delete it, though I have been tempted. I had almost decided to not post anything this week but here I go. In a moment I will press “Publish” and entrust to you these truths. God is faithful! Hope has a name, Jesus! “Weeping may tarry in the night but joy comes in the morning” For a time we may find ourselves in the first stanzas of one of David’s Psalms but as we hang on and hang in we will inevitable find our way to the place of praise.