How tired are you feeling right now? And does that surprise you?

I hear you. Me too. It’s a bit of a roller coaster, isn’t it? Shattered one day, full of projects and passions and productivity the next.

I wish. Although there have been one or two great ideas and good moments recently. And several days of not so much. Are you with me?

Many of us are experiencing mini-bereavements right now. And bereavement is exhausting.

Loss of normal. Loss of social connections. Loss of favourite foods, loss of security, loss of usual routines….. They are all mini bereavements.

And bereavement as we know can cause many reactions - tiredness, bewilderment, anxiety, sleeplessness, even anger and confusion. A desire for carbs - or no desire for food whatsoever; the urge to over-exercise - or the need for a total duvet day or three; a need to tidy and declutter - or the inability to remove any dust or clutter whatsoever. The inability to pray. Or read. Or be nice to others who live in my house. And even a total mixture of all those, depending on which day it is.

I don’t even know which day it is, some days. Do you? One day I’m full of plans and projects and procedures to DO stuff; the next I’ve decided to become a sleeping hermit and never do anything ever again. And some days I say, where is God in all of this?

So I’m giving up trying to be normal and carry on.

Instead I’m allowing myself to do what helps when it helps.

And that varies from day to day too. One day it’s a long bubble bath accompanied by scented candles and a good ( and definitely not heavy in any sense) book. The next it’s a long brisk walk. One day it’s a whole packet of ginger biscuits or digestives, the next it’s a meal of purple sprouting broccoli. One day it’s writing a whole chapter, the next it’s gazing out of the window in tears.

And it will all be different for each one of us. I’m not home schooling fractious anxious children nor running a multi level company from my living room. Nor trying to do both at the same time. We each have to cope with different things and we each have to discover what helps us to cope. For the long term. Because I don’t think this WILL be all over by Easter or soon after, whatever some Presidents may say. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

SO I have been ruminating about what will happen when we emerge from this ‘pandemic’ which is uppermost in people’s minds right now. Will the relief override the austerity which will inevitably immediately ensue due to the financial constraints we are under? Rather as the Roaring Twenties succeeded the deprivations of the Great War?

Will the Church have found good new ways to BE church and be able to continue to build on that? Will we as Christians have learned to say not, “We are Christians, here’s our building, come and join us,” but to say “We are Christians, we ARE the church, we are coming to serve you in whatever way we can in your community.”

And will we have found new deeper intimacy with Christ as a result of this unexpected time that most of us now have? (of course, many are now overworked, especially those in our health service, hospitals and surgeries. What will the Christians there have experienced and learned?)

At the moment, all I can say is,
Lord have mercy. Send the Spirit. We need you.

And perhaps that’s enough, and what we need to learn to say. He is with us, IN and THROUGH these deep deep waters.

Your plans are still to prosper
You have not forgotten us
You're with us in the fire and the flood
You're faithful forever
Perfect in love
You are sovereign over us - Michael W. Smith

If all I can do is to hang on to words like those, or maybe to Psalm 23 , or whatever to words from Scripture and song give hope, then that’s enough for now. It may be finger-tip hanging. But we’re still hanging in there. Right?

So I’m taking my helpful words and sticking them up where I’m reminded of them often. Repeating them to myself a lot during a day. Putting the worship CDs on.

And they can’t ban spring. It’s the springiest spring ever sprung. As Dennis Potter said, it’s the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be. The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous.”

Thank you Lord

GOING DEEPER box set - 4 books to help you to go deeper with the Lord AND it’s available at a special discount price of nearly half off the total retail value. Click here to order your set (limited numbers/time, so don’t delay.)