And today, it seems like spring just might come yet. The sunshine is beautiful, the sky is bright blue; the snow is melting and the mud is glistening. (Spring=mud, at our house...) I did the cleaning, a bit more thoroughly than I have done it of late. (The dried mud on the linoleum was past being simply swept up...it needed a good scrubbing.) The sheets, and some clothes, i washed and hung outside to dry. I marvel at how life’s deepest fears can be calmed by something as simple as hard work; something as clean and fresh as the biting glare of the sunshine and brisk winds of spring. There is something about “hanging out the wash” that banishes darkness. The darkest corners of the soul seem to be opened to the light and fresh air, when the smell of clean sheets and clothes is in the air (and all of them set dancing by the “Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind,” to quote Burgess)...
What a glorious day, to have such joy in my work. After weeks and months of being cooped up indoors, of working every day to keep the pain in my mind and anxiety in my heart from taking over and rendering me useless to my Lord, myself, and those around me. Yes, even on my bad days, I am much better. So much better than I was, back in those days when I wanted to crawl under the bed with the dust bunnies. Modern medicine is a blessed thing for we who suffer from depression and anxiety. Behavioral therapy techniques do work. But what is glossed over, in therapy or in the doctor’s office, is the realization of how hard is the climb upward, to get better. Absolutely, it gets easier. But the battle is never completely won. So a day of beauty, of joy, of hard work to tire the body and ease the mind, is a welcome day of rest.
Again, I quote Amy Carmichael, from Rose from Brier, where she spoke of how the phrase “enforced rest” rankled, when she was confined to her bed in pain.
“...the mail brought a letter which discoursed with what sounded almost like pleasure on this “enforced rest,” and the silly phase rankled like a thorn...So this was supposed to be rest?
...[but] how can they, the unwounded, know anything about the matter? But the Lord our Creator knows (and all who have ever suffered know) that pain and helplessness are not rest, and never can be; nor is the weakness that follows acute pain, nor the tiredness that is so tired of being tired that it is poles apart from rest. He knows that rest is found in that sense of well-being one has after a gallop on horseback, or a plunge in a forest pool or the glorious sea--in physical and in mental fitness, in power to be and do.”
And my illness (though, from the outside, to an onlooker who did not understand, it may at times look like an “enforced rest“) this illness--the agony of mind that renders one limited, sometimes severely limited, in ability to shoulder the sweet duties and cares of a family; duties that should be mine; and that i desperately wish to do--this is not, and never can be, rest. It is utter pain and weariness, though it cannot be seen from the outside unless one can look into another’s eyes and through those windows truly see the soul.
And another passage from Miss Carmichael’s book, a few chapters later...
“True valor lies, not in what the world calls success, but in the dogged going on when everything in the man says, STOP.
...Let us face it now: which is harder, to be well and doing things, or to be ill and bearing things? It was a long time before I saw the comfort that is in that question. Here we may find our opportunity to crucify that cowardly thing, that softness that would sink to things below, self-pity, dullness, selfishness, ungrateful gloom.”
Is there hope, then? that in this i may conquer the softness that would sink to “things below”? that in this i may learn true valor? valor in the dogged going on when everything in me wants to stop? Lord, let it be.
But thank you, O Lord, for this day of rest. This day to be well and doing things, this day of power to be and to do.
i am weary--beautifully, completely weary. Weary with the clean tiredness of good hard work, of being outside. It is a wonderful feeling. After the pain and anxiety of winter, this wonderful day of drinking in the sunshine and fresh air; and then, this evening of lovely weariness--it has been a day of beautiful rest.
...and once again i wonder if anyone who has not endured the darkness can be truly grateful for the sunshine...
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