Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:
As usual, the insights shared on our discussion thread last week were equal parts wise, thought-provoking, and relatable! Today, I would like to share these honest words from Julia Fae as she explained how she navigates change through the lens of seasonal depression:
The tools I use are radical acceptance, storing as many pleasant experiences that I can, compassion for myself, routine and scheduling time to sit with my darknesses, as well as adherence to to-do lists that I can visually check off so that I have a tangible means of seeing and tracking my efforts made. Leaning into art-making is important, and taking on projects will keep me moving. Making good bone broth soup is a challenging to-do that helps, so I can add to my skill growth and store healthy food that I can use when I am too depressed to have the energy to cook properly.
If I am really low, ensuring I drink a lot of water throughout the day and wash/moisturize my face regularly will be my first step on the ladder out of the hole of darkness. Self-care, in this way, gets the wheels turning. Pampering doesn't feel like pampering at first; doing my nails will carry the same taste of sawdust as everything else does when I'm down. But it starts lifting the ropes that eventually carry me out of the doom.
This is so beautifully said, and based on the number of folks who clicked the heart beside her comment it resonated with many of you! Thank you, Julia! Julia Fae is a fellow Substacker, and she writes a riotously fascinating newsletter called The Skinless Grape. Check it out!
If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!
Now, on with this week’s devotional…
it has become our late summer guest: a veil of smoke that crouches over the woods the waves the houses and sits picking the ashes from its teeth; and we (fragile-lunged things) are driven indoors under a red-eyed sun gasping with hope to wait for the breath of God (spell-breaking) (clean-tasting) so we may sing our songs again under a wild and fire-faced moon.
Over the last several years it has become a sorrowful custom here in late August and early September to look up and see the sky veiled with smoke, the sun red, and even light ash falling like snow. This is the breath from distant (and not-so-distant) wildfires, making its way through the atmosphere like a haunting parade.
How long it lasts is always a gamble. Some summers we are trapped under the smoke’s spell for weeks. Other times it is only a few frustrating days. But no matter how long it lasts it’s never welcome.
This year, just like so many others, the smoke blew in overnight while we were away from home, at the waterfront cabin my family built decades ago. The smoke filtered its way down the saltwater channel and lingered, despite the ever-present wind that flutters through that beloved place. It was not dangerous enough to keep us indoors but it was pervasive, stifling. The animal in me felt vaguely panicked, ready to run at a moment’s notice. There is something deep within that recognizes the danger, even if the news has told me that the source of that danger is far away.
It made me think about the seasons of our lives when everything feels hazy, vague. When even the most familiar landscapes appear warped and wrong. These seasons happen to us all, for all sorts of reasons. They are disorienting. We feel that we can’t take a breath.
You may be in a season like that right now. If you are, I hope you can hear me calling through the haze, and see my outstretched hand. No matter how thick the smoke or how turned-around you feel, you are not alone. And no matter how long the season lasts, the wind of God’s healing breath will break through. You’ll see.
Whatever wildfire—distant or not—that has left this mark upon the landscape of your mind and soul, know this: the rains will come. The winds will come.
Grace is stronger than fire, and soon you will be reborn.
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Soothing to the soul.
It’s never welcome but I sense faith may reside as much in the hope for cleansing rain as in the willingness to be scorched and choked by purgatorial fire.