Categories: anything-and-everything
Date: 13 November 2008 23:16:43
In times past I used to dwell in that place that feels like it's on the edge of everybody else's world. The place that feels like everyone else is connected, but you're not, the place where "nobody cares". It's not a place I dwell in any more - I'm pleased to say, although there are strange little moments when I seem to pop back for a visit!
This week is one of those times. All sorts of silly and really, insignificant things keep popping up before me that remind me of that place where I am insignificant. Things that mean nothing on their own but that together make a big pile of rubbish!
It's even starting to be funny!
Back in those days I remember reading Adrian Plass's "Stress Family Robinson" where family friend 'Dip' spoke of her plan. At those times when she felt insignifcant and alone she would retreat and see if anyone would bother to come and find her, if anyone would notice. I remember reading it and thinking, "really, someone else has thought that - not just me?!" And that made me laugh too.
I'm glad to say that God is good at providing a way into healthy thinking, healing from the things that cause us to retreat and wallow... and sometimes reminders of where we've come from. I hope this visit won't last too long.
When I lived more firmly in that old place, but was starting to move away, I felt that God showed me a spiral staircase down which I was walking. And at some point I had to step off the staircase, that's all, or to put it in the Psalmist's terms, to step from the mire to the rock. I had to let go of that seemingly comfortable place of assuming I knew what everyone else thought about me and learn some new stuff - which included what God might think, as well as what I'd decided too. And then to live with it, if what I thought they thought turned out to be true! Which seems to bring me back to where I started... on the edge!