When your mind is stuck in the dark night in-between time

“How long, LORD?” cried the psalmist. “Will you forget me forever?”

“How long will you hide your face from me?”

In the Bible? These words? Yes. Psalm 13 to be exact.

It’s a crazy, quick 6-verse psalm that finishes in praise.

There’s only one problem. Many of us are stuck in that long period of the dark night where all cognisance of God’s goodness seems missing, even if we know we’ve got so much to be thankful for.

I really don’t care for people who will say, “That guy/gal has so much to be thankful for yet look at them whinge… so ungrateful!”

I care for the one, who, though they seem estranged to a constancy of joy, is honest, and they live the fact that Christians face depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, burnout and the like.

Many of the most ardent Christians are defined by the strength of their doubting. By the fact that they’ve been in their dark night in-between time so long is testament of their resolve for the Lord.

There is a trouble, however, in being in this waystation far from home for too long. We can forget what home looks and feels like, and we can fail to recognise the signs that we’re actually AT home; it’s just a new home that we haven’t yet recognised as good. This is scary in that, if we don’t feel at home now, we can become concerned, “will I ever feel at home again?”

I’m here to tell you, I hear you.

Trauma certainly takes us on a track where we find it hard to trust we’re safe.

As we travel through this in-between time that appears as the dark night that St John of the Cross described to us as a time where God’s Presence feels missing, we’d be forgiven for pondering giving up. Yet, such is God’s goodness faithful, we find we’re given just enough strength not to give up.

It is this kind of faith that pleases God most—that which keeps stepping despite doubt enough to seriously consider giving up very often.

Think of the final words of Habakkuk (chapter 3, verses 17-18):

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

The reality is this: only as we continue to step out our weary journey, sustained by as little as keeps us going, somehow with an assurance of God’s goodness, but without even feeling it, are we being primed for something infinitely better. Stay the course my friend.

Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash