LESSONS FROM THE HIDDEN FIELD

Our daylight this morning was muted and as I opened our blinds I could see the reason.  Fog.  We had the same scene yesterday as well, but I believe this morning’s fog was even thicker than the day before.  Opening even more blinds didn’t do much for letting light into our house on this foggy morning.  The sun was completely hidden.  Something else was hidden too.  I noticed it as I stood in Andrea’s room and looked out of her windows.  I love the view from this vantage point.  I can see our entire back field and then look across the road to the farmer’s field.  It’s a view that I’m so accustomed to that I hardly recognize the comfort it gives me until it’s gone……..like it was today. 

 

The field, that is.  It seemed to be gone.  I still had a view of sorts, but my pretty farmer’s field was not to be seen through the thick fog.  And I missed it.  I felt boxed in……cornered, in a way.  I’ve become used to expansive views living here in flat Kansas, and I love that.  I love seeing way out ahead, knowing what’s coming and what’s there just by one look.  But today, for the second day, my view was limited and my field was not there…..so it seemed. 

Oh, I knew the field hadn’t gone anywhere.  Fields don’t just up and leave.  But I couldn’t prove it was there by what I was seeing at the moment.  What I was seeing was…….fog.  Fog that seemed to be deepening by the minute, which obscured my view even more.  By the time I left the house to run my errands a couple hours later, the fog was still hovering low to the ground.  And my field was still unseen, at least by me.

I was gone longer than I had anticipated today.  Christmas shopping, you know.  By the time I drove home, the lights on the van were no longer needed.  The sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue, the temperature warm.........and my view had returned.  I walked upstairs and into Andrea’s room to look out the window, and there it was.  The field.  Of course, I knew it would be there but it sure was nice to see it for myself.  My world looked entirely different in just a few hours…..bright and large and back to normal.

 

I got a lump in my throat this morning as I thought about the fog.  It wasn’t that the fog made me want to cry, but what the whole scene represented to me caused my emotion.  You see, I’ve had a life that I’ve been used to for a long time.  Really, ever since I was a little girl there are aspects of my life that have been pretty much the same.  The past few years have changed a lot of things for me, though.  Change has come in various ways.  Loss of parents.  Kids growing up and moving on.  Physical changes as I age.  Health decisions for Aaron.  And perhaps most significant of all, for the present, is the loss of a dear ministry that we loved and the fellowship with friends that went with it.  It’s put me……..us………in a place we have never been before. 

Loss and change of this type cause a season of grief and instability.  Like having my normal view disrupted by the fog, all this change in my life has been unnerving to me.  What I have been accustomed to no longer exists.  I look out the windows but I don’t see very far.  I can’t tell what’s ahead, not even a little bit.  I don’t have instant answers to my questions.  And honestly, just like not being able to see the field, I sometimes don’t even see God.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know God doesn’t just up and leave one of His children.   I couldn’t prove the field was there today by what I was seeing……or not seeing……but I knew it was there because I know about fields and I know they don’t vanish.  I can’t always prove God is here by what I see or how I feel, but I know God and I know He doesn’t leave me.  I know that God has allowed a period of fog in my life, if for no other reason than to teach me to walk by faith and not by sight………and not by emotions…….and not by clinging to that which is comfortable and familiar. 

Will my world someday be bright and large and back to normal?  I have a feeling that my normal will be forever changed.  But I do anticipate that God will clear away the fog and that my view will be enlarged.  I don’t know how and I don’t know when.  But I know God and I know He is with me.  He does not hide His face from His children.  Through the fog He is there, faithful and steady and sure even when I don’t see Him. 

I hope I’ve learned through all of this that I can’t trust the view.  It’s God Himself that I must trust, even when I don’t see Him. 

He never just up and leaves.