One of the hardest things to endure this season (#4 for me) has been the lack of sun. There is a continual cover of low-lying cloud that filters the daylight – a mere six hours – and makes the whole world seem a million shades of gray. The nights are black as ink. Occasionally a wind will blow in from the Baltic Sea, move the clouds aside, and the glow created by the moon's light on the snow is quite beautiful. But then the snow melts and turns into muck within days of falling, and you long for blue skies and sunshine. We burn vanilla or strawberry scented candles, eat mandarin oranges by the bag (they spoil fast), light the fireplace, drink lots of water, occasionally go to the solarium (tanning salon) for the UV exposure and take other measures to fight the inevitable depression. That would include being just silly with Olivia. Christians? Depressed?? I never would have thought it possible. It’s something I read about, even heard a few other missionaries here battled. I thought, incorrectly, that they weren’t spiritual enough, or keeping busy enough, or exercising. But it has hit home this year. Lack of motivation, feelings of failure, loss of appetite, it’s something different every week. The best cure is to have a really good cry, and more time of fellowship with God. But when your kid or husband or friend needs you, and activity pulls you this way and that, when deadlines loom and housework mounts, that time with God gets pushed farther and farther into the day, until you collapse into bed, and it’s too late. You’ve managed to do nearly everything in your own strength, not God’s. So you are worn out. Headaches or muscle pains or congestion begins to gnaw at whatever strength or positive spirit you have left. You just want so terribly much to sit in the sun! But it never comes. It's always behind those...clouds. Someone jumps off a tower, and you actually understand the downward spiral his life took.
My Bible devotion this morning brought me to a very beloved passage of Scripture, Psalm 90. I sung a wonderful arrangement of it twenty years ago, on tour with Maranatha’s Madrigal and Handbell choir:
Psalm 90:1-3 (a prayer of Moses) “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.”
It is by far one of the most beautiful scriptures I’ve ever read, including the descriptions of God’s awesome wrath. I’d always assumed God brought or allowed big, catastrophic events in the natural world in order that people would turn to him for help. Although this is Moses' way of contritely admitting the mortality and suffering of man, the Hebrew words for “destruction” and “return” used in this passage have a broader context, in that they are both figurative and literal; ‘destruction’ refers to being turned to powder or being contrite - we literally turn to dust after death, or our spirit becomes contrite when it is crushed; ‘return’ is to turn away, or retreat, not necessarily to the point of origin, but to a place of either breaking down or building up. In my experience, humility is a companion to retreat. It’s not only in natural disasters that people turn away from self-possession, and retreat to rebuild their lives with a greater fear of God, or but also such times God withholds His hand of blessing (such as we feel when in poor health, infertility, or loneliness), or when we are in bondage to a stronghold (such as anger, alcoholism, etc.). Moses, in this prayer, laments to God about man's mortality and suffering, and because he humbles himself God takes pity on him. It's that place of humility I have to 'get' to time and time again.
Yesterday we went to visit Heigo, who still is unable to walk or use his left arm since his stroke. He is more reliant on God than ever before, and a joy to be with. Olivia looks forward to seeing “Bambi” out his window, a wooden carving that sits in the front entrance of the convalescent home. Bambi was wearing a festive string of red lights this time, which really delighted her! She chatted the whole visit, and seems to have overcome her fear of the strange smells and sounds, even waving goodbye to the scary woman across the hall from Heigo whose discontented hollers never stop. Heigo, having been made completely helpless and contrite, has retreated back to his Bible (one of my dad's...who never imagined, I'm sure, that one of his bibles would end up on a man's bedside table in a little home in a little town on the other side of the world!), and found joy in trusting God. He is not interested in reading other publications, as the wonder and mystery of truth sheds light in his heart. Those who struggle with blindness, arthritis, or kidney failure, have been turned to “powder,” so to speak. They continue in defeat, or turn away and build their faith by seeking God’s word and praying. Suffering is used by God to make us know our true state. While living in this part of the world seems unbearable some days, I know God is using it to change me. It brings me to my knees! I get up after my time with God with enough joy and reassurance to get me through to the next place he would have me to be. Praise the Lord!
