distant

God! My God! It’s you—
I search for you!
My whole being thirsts for you!
My body desires you
   in a dry and tired land,
   no water anywhere. – Psalm 63:1 (CEB)

As I sit on my porch to write, I am surrounded by God’s abundance.

We finally received rain yesterday, and everything is refreshed.

The green has returned.

My flowers and plants are perky once again.

The birds are singing. The sun isn’t shining because it’s about to rain again – the anticipation of it is heavy in the air.

We still need more rain. Even though it wouldn’t stop in the spring, it’s been dry of late. This is coupled with sun and heat the last two weeks. Nature is fickle that way. It needs to constantly be nurtured in a balanced way in order to thrive.

I’m not really different. I can’t eat for a week and then take a week off. Or stay up for days on end and then sleep a lot. We don’t work that way. I think that’s why depression is such a difficult life partner. When I am in balance, a down day doesn’t have a negative impact. But when depression takes hold, balance goes away. I seem distant from myself because who I am in these times is not who I really am.

In these times, God also seems distant. As I try to prepare for worship each week, God seems silent. It’s hard to find words when God doesn’t provide them. I know God is there and is indeed speaking, but it seems lost in the fog. What I do hear sounds more like an echo, the leftover of the actual sound. It isn’t clear. It isn’t complete. I can’t quite grasp it.

Depression leaves a body dry and tired. It wearies my being. I realize I am thirsty but there is an inability to drink the bit of water I can even find. It does not quench. If anything, it reminds me of how thirsty I am.

As the psalmist calls out to the God who seems distant, there is a certainty that God is actually there. The desire to find water – to find God – is a reminder that dry and tired is not who we are meant to be. It is not all we are.

Therefore, I pray that the same heavy anticipation in the air this morning of a quenching rain will be felt in my soul and balance might be restored. That the truth that God is not distant or an elusive echo will not simply be a statement of faith but my lived reality. And that I will find myself again.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you. – Psalm 139:7-12 (NRSV)

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