Saturday, July 17

Heaviness in the heart makes it stoop, but a good word makes it glad.
—Proverbs 12:25

Sometimes we can learn from nature what we are so fearful to learn from our own lives. Consider a day when a curtain of clouds has covered the sun, leaving the air heavy with moisture. We feel the weight even in the presence of a gentle breeze and a relatively mild temperature. Though rain is absent, we know the drops are there, simply waiting for their cue to come on stage.

This heaviness of nature is often mirrored in our souls. We may have an intuitive sense that lightness exists—it may even be stored in our memory—but it seems to elude us. The truth is that heaviness will come for a period of time and then it will leave to make room for lightness. Each has something to teach us if we will observe in stillness.

Perhaps that is the largest obstacle—observing in stillness. When there's lightness we are joyful and our souls have a blithe spirit about them. We bask in that for a short time, and then begin to assume, even expect, the lightness to be there always. 

Then when it leaves to make room for heaviness, we are angry, hurt, fearful. Our souls feel lonely and dark. We want to run, avoid, deny, search for what is good and light. We try to navigate our way through the heaviness with a kind of brutal force—trying to rid ourselves of that which has taken away our ease and comfort.

Heaviness and lightness are part of the whole. Both have their appointed time, and in the fullness of that time, they take their bow and leave the stage so the next act can begin. Our lives would be much more even and our souls would be healthier if we simply observed each new act in stillness.

O God, whether I am blanketed in the cloak of heaviness or wrapped in the gossamer of light, let me relax my control and be the observer of the lessons of life.

These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2003.