Fog

For any folk who still drift by this way, my apologies for taking so long to put up another post. Things have been mixed of late. Thankfully Christmas was a great time of blessing with family and friends and was a great way to end the year and to be reminded that God is a great God. Through prayer and a few conversations here and there I am now back at Christ Church, which, for the two times i've been thus far has been really good. Good teaching, good friendship and good fellowship. As I sit and type I can tell you that I am blessed and thankful for the multitude of ways that that blessing comes to the fore.

However its also been yet another difficult month in a difficult year. Jobs wise things still seem bleak, and while I do seem to have a renewed zeal for postgraduate study (working towards teaching in a University) that in itself seems far into the future, expensive and there are question marks over the wisdom of such study if me and Steph are to make a go of things long term.

And that leads neatly into me and Steph. A great blessing has been her new job which she will start in a few days. And yet that, along with my intention to go back and be a postgraduate, seems to be far from helping us reach a point at which we might enjoy the benefits of a simple relationship (ie being in the same country) and begin a future together. Indeed our current status is one which brings with it levels of stress that rival even the misery of the 'Agape' years, as our individual paths wind and twist further away from one another.

Nonetheless, before you think this is a woe is me email, I went for a walk today in part to meet with the Lord and bring many of these burdens before him, and also to marvel at the rather incredible ice world that had been created by freezing fog. As I walked across the fields amidst woods and frozen hedges I was brought to a number of thoughts:

• God is a great and wonderful God and I have been a fool of late for not trusting these stresses and strains to Him, whilst trying to figure everything out here and now.


• The Fog enveloped everything and thus made it more difficult to see the way ahead. But it also created a sense of peace that magnified everything nearby - bird calls, rustling of leaves, even my own breathing. This was astonishing and made me think that in many ways the times when the way ahead seems far from clear is not always such a bad thing. It is a time when we are less distracted by worldly ways, we are more able to hear God's voice, magnified. Amazing!


• The Fog also had a second effect. It froze everything, which revealed many things that are almost hidden most of the time. Cobwebs are perhaps the best example of this, and this also led me to think that in a time when it seems bleak (its cold and visibility is non existent) we are not only able to hear God more (his presence, like the sound of the birds is magnified as wider distractions are phased out), but those things that are so often hidden (perhaps sin or a talent or situation that was un-noticed) are suddenly made visible to us.

In short the fog took on a whole new meaning - a vivid representation of how God can use circumstances that at once seem frightning, frustrating, filled with the unknown, to bring His character and truth to the fore, whilst also making us more aware of the ways in which we are worthless and foolish.