In the Mist

"She began to realize that, cowardly though she was, there was something in her which responded with a surge of excitement to the tests and difficulties of the way better than to easier and duller circumstances...she found herself realizing with astonishment that even the dizzy precipice had been more to her liking than this dreary plodding on and on through the bewildering mist.  In some way the dangers of the storm had stimulated her; now there was nothing but tameness, just a trudge, trudge forward, day after day, able to see nothing except for white, clinging mist which hung about the mountains without a gleam of sunshine breaking through."  

from "Hinds Feet on High Places"

Both yesterday and today, we've woken up to mist and fog enshrouding everything.  I sat on the porch with my coffee in hand and opened up "Hinds Feet on High Places" where the bookmark indicated I'd left off.  The chapter entitled "In the Mist" looked up at me.  As I began to read, I recognized little bits of myself in the main character, Much Afraid.  Not because I prefer the excitement and danger of the storms of life! But because I tend to become complacent in the daily tameness of the mist.

I actually prefer the duller circumstances, but I know that the Lord uses the more difficult aspects of life in the Solomon Islands to pull me closer to Him.  As we prepare to go back, I'm the only one in the family who isn't excited.  I love the work and the people, but honestly, I don't love how strenuous and hot and isolated life is.  I recognize that I am thrown at Jesus' feet more because of the hardships, yet the endurance and perseverance that is grown in me during times in the mist is a valuable asset, too.  I need both the storms AND the mist.

"We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirt gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way:  bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience..."

Colossians 1:9b-11