Thought I'd come back from my writing break with something a little different. I'm calling it “Light Lenten Reflections” and am aiming to post something every Wednesday during Lent. There will be two short assignments at the end of each post you may either run with or ignore. And there probably will be at least one post on fishing...this is The Angle, after all...

  Light Lenten Reflections

Week 1

God of the Gray Day

The sun came out yesterday. Briefly. I appreciated it, but I hadn't really missed it. It's the early part of February, another gray month in the Midwest, and I'm fine with that. Seriously. I prefer clouds to sun, rain to clear skies, cool over warmth. My son is wired the same way, coming in from running on cool, cloudy, misty days, waxing poetic about the amazing weather. He spent two years living in El Paso, Texas, before moving back to the Midwest. One of his reasons for his return? He said he couldn't stand the relentless sun any longer. Weird, huh?

No, not really weird, though most cloudy day lovers know we are perceived that way by others. There are, in fact, many people out there who share the same love of meteorological gloom my son and I share. Instead of the gray of winter or a rainy day depressing them, they often describe feeling both invigorated and a peaceful calm. These people range from pluviophiles – lovers of rain who find both joy and comfort in rainy days, relishing being out in it – to those who suffer from “Reverse S.A.D.” (Seasonal Affective Disorder), a depression caused by exposure to too much light, manifesting itself during the summer months, often in warm climates. My son is definitely a pluviophile, running in the rain when temperatures are above freezing. I'm only a mild pluviophile. I love rainy days, thunderstorms (minus the tornadoes), the sound of rain on the roof, the pattern of rain falling in ponds and puddles, but I prefer to watch it all through a window or from a sheltered porch. I also suspect I have a touch of Reverse S.A.D, suffering from what I perceive as the excesses of Midwest summers. Retire south? No, thank you. I'm heading north...

Since childhood I've pondered why I am so fond of the cloudy day. I was born in April. Was it a rainy spring day and is that what I've come to expect as my most comforting weather? I'm a mildly optimistic realist. Are sunny days for wildly optimistic idealists and cause too much internal dissonance for my personality? 

Comforted...enveloped...surrounded...protected...energized...hugged... these are the words that best describe how I feel on a dark, cloudy day. But why? I recently had an “aha” moment while reading Psalm 18, providing new insight into my fondness for the dark day.

I've always been a fan of Psalm 18. It's seen me through some very difficult times. In its 50 verses, God shows up as both an equipper and a powerful rescuer. My favorite section:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place;

he rescued me because he delighted in me.*

My “aha” moment came when I started to read backwards from my favorite verses. Before this great rescuing part, there is a description of God's mighty power and the means by which He manifests His coming to the rescue:

He parted the heavens and came down;

dark clouds were under his feet.

He mounted the cherubim and flew;

he soared on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—

the dark rain clouds of the sky.**

And there it was...clouds...dark clouds...dark rain clouds...and God's personal, rescuing presence. My cloudy day feelings of being comforted, enveloped, surrounded, protected, energized, even hugged...were they a reflection of that personal, rescuing, reassuring presence of God? God hid His presence in a cloud when He was actively engaging with His people – going before the Israelites, leading them out of Egypt to the Promised Land.+ He hid His presence in a cloud when He spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai.++ Are some of us wired differently from our sun-loving brothers, more easily able to receive comfort and hope on a gray day, perhaps unconsciously sensing that where clouds are, God and His comforting presence can't be far away?

What about our non-meteorological gray days? Do we find God in them?

Something to Ponder:

Whether you are a sun lover or a gray day lover, think about some gray, dark time of your life. Did you feel closer or farther away from God? If closer, how did that help your relationship with God, how did that help you through the dark time? Thank Him... If God felt distant at that time, what would you wish you could have felt/received from Him? Tell Him...

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Psalm 18, or at least verses 9-19. This is a powerful image of how much God is radically for us. Ask God to allow you to experience His saving presence, to be able to know Him in your gray days, your dark times. Reread verse 19. Ask God to allow you to know His delight in you.

*Psalm 18:16-19 (NIV)

**Psalm 18:9-11 (NIV)

+Exodus 13

++Exodus 19, 24

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day - Smokey Robinson