thesoulpurposedotorg

The Shape of Living: Spiritual Directions for Everyday Life by David F. Ford utilizes the concept of being overwhelmed as a way that we are spiritual formed by the events in our lives and how we respond to those events. He calls these “overwhelmings” which got me to thinking.
We’ve had some overwhelmings in this part of the country – literally covered with a flood. Fortunately for us, we are fine – just lost a hunk of property to erosion from our creek that is usually 5 feet across and a few inches deep. Last week it was 35 feet across and about that deep, a raging river.
That makes me think about what it is really like to be overwhelmed when there is nothing to hang on to. I remember many times like that in my life, the last time being when I became too ill to work about five years ago and have since been in unremitting pain. I keep returning to the first chapter of John and to the 23rd Psalm, going deeply into meditation on phrases from those scriptures.
We’ve watched houses floating down our rivers, homes completely lifted off their foundations. It is no wonder that when people are overwhelmed, they dip into the darkness. Sometimes it appears that the darkness is all there is. Certainly I have had times when that was all I could see. In those times, it was only God holding me that saved me but I certainly was not aware that I was being held in the moment. Like those homes and pieces of homes swirling down the flooded rivers, there are times we have no choice but to just wait until we land and hope we don’t drown in the process. There is no ability to hold on to anything during those times. The floods move too quickly and unexpectedly.
We may not turn to what appears as darkness (whether it be drugs, sex or alcohol) but we might shrink back into being judgmental or clingy or angry or completely insecure or any number of other attitudes that are equally destructive. For myself, I have found that anything that I have judged negatively in someone else, I end up finding in myself at some point in time. Life just seems to me to be an adventure in one humbling experience (one overwhelming) after another with moments here and there where the light shines brightly and peace overwhelms into depths the darkness cannot reach.