There’s something about stomach flu for New Year’s, the accompanying never ending dirty laundry and social isolation, the follow up illnesses, the single digit temperatures, and pitch darkness at 6 PM that leaves one in an existentialist crisis at the start of a brand spanking new year.  Or maybe just me.

Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?

We get tired and discouraged.  Facing treatments and our mortality head on, or accompanying someone who is.  Starting businesses, taking on side work or more hours, trying to make ends meet.  Caring for babies with fevers or reflux night after night, or aging parents who have gotten confused as time passes day after day.  Having the same fights with our kids, our spouses.  Being alone.  Not hearing from God for any kind of direction.  Uncertainty.  Obstacles.  Doubt.  Fear.

Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?

These questions and the feelings that accompany them can bring us to awful places.  But don’t run from them.  Don’t avoid or ignore them.  Sit with them.  Embrace them.

The darkness, the desert, the existential crisis place can be the holy ground where we meet God.  Where we, like Jacob, feeling lost and alone may arise and say, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16B NIV)

Most of us want to wait until we’re on the “other side” of troubles to share our story, to relate with and love on people, to begin new journeys, to be totally and freely ourselves.  We feel like hard times and places are to be overcome, so that we can start anew.

My life counselor and pater familias reminded me earlier this week about the power of “dripping truth,” when we aren’t in a place to do more.  Different seasons mean different roles to play, and if God is sovereign than He is aware of every detail in our lives,  He knows.  He knows, “we (may be) hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)  There is plan for us in the hard, difficult places.  He is there, in the midst.

The place where I end is my beginning.

Somewhere in between Christmas and Easter, in the months we call “winter,” we cling to the unexpected birth of Messiah and look forward to a glorious Resurrection.  In this dead season, where nothing flowers and we struggle and wonder if there’s a point to anything, we wait with Hope for the victory over death that we know has come.

Isaiah prays over our meals each night, “Bless our food, and help the things grow up so well.”  We prayed in the summer over our harvest, but he continues to pray the same prayer into the winter season.  How important this lesson is, and amazing that it comes from my spirited three year old.  To pray in the dead time.

The time when we don’t see any progress, no blossoming or growing.  The times where it feels like we’re just hanging on, and persevering through the hard parts of life, namely sickness and death in whatever form that comes.

“The climate in which prayer flowers is that of the desert, where the comfort of man is absent, where the secure routines of man’s city offer no support, and where prayer must be sustained by God in the purity of faith.”  (Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer)

The greatest of faiths are built in the times where we ask the hard questions.  Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?  When you’re tempted to give up, press on.

The place where I end is my beginning.

“Through Jesus… let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” (Hebrews 13:15 NIV)  The season is passing.  There will be new springs, new Life, and more troubles, more death.  A heart that trusts and continues to praise, even in the midst, honors Him.

We must start here.  We must share our stories, relate with and love on people, begin new journeys.  Be totally and freely ourselves.