Know-Love-Obey God

High Calling Blogs Book Club:
The Right to Write:
An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life,
by Julia Cameron, Chapters 1-3
See Laura Boggess’s post (and links to other Book Club posts) here.

Instead of discussing the book, I will simply post my response to Cameron’s “Initiation Tool” at the end of the first chapter. The exercise is to:

. . . describe how and what you are feeling right now. Begin where you are—physically, emotionally, psychologically . . .
(Cameron, page 5)

Here goes . . .

**********

(Written on Tuesday, 6 April 2010)

I was walking in clarity. Sun shone in clear skies, and I felt the giddy, calming contentment of sunbathing, swimming in Maui waters, or reading on the window seat in summertime. I received blessing after blessing, daily dreams-come-true. Incredible.

Then, what happened? Something happened very abruptly. In a moment I moved from sunlit clarity to fog. Was I not living well? Did I not respond to the goodness God granted me?

I have walked this fire before. I know what He has done in flames like these, and it is always good, always for my good. I feel safe in the Lord. He will never leave me nor forsake me; I know it.

Yet, in the knowing, I still walk in fog and feel its dampness settling on my skin, chilling me. I feel safe in the Lord, yet much remains undefined. I feel I am grieving, but over what, I don’t know. Did I just experience loss?

I feel I have lost something, like a treasure in my hands has slipped through careless fingers, and I can’t find it because of the fog. Will I ever recover this thing? Is the loss permanent?

I feel something has been building fast, making rapid progress. But now I feel a slowing—not a halting, I hope. What fell from my hands? Will I ever recover it?

Just now I wondered, is the fog the future? Am I creating the fog with my “what-if’s”? Perhaps I lost nothing at all. Maybe it is still with me, only tossed in the air and waiting at the top of its vertical in an impossibly lengthened “hang time.”

Ah, a hang time. Perhaps I am in a hang time. Left hanging for a length of time unknown to me. So much remains undefined. Why has the Lord put me in this new, foggy path? How shall I respond, now that I am here?

I look again for the something I have lost in the fog. All lines are blurred and indistinct. In the fog is light yet vagueness, without even the sharp silhouettes of twilight or dawn. There is light—I am not in a dark place—but there is some uncertainty. I walk in the light of Christ, but the fog diffuses the light. So much remains undefined—but why do I always want a clear definition? Shall I not be content and even rejoice in the fact that, though I do not know where I’m headed, I certainly know The Way?

Perhaps I am here because I was beginning to trust in myself (again). I need this place of humility to remind me that I can do nothing without God.

Yes, that much is clear. There is no fog in that.