Reflections on Fires, Fiddles and Faith (+ Five Happy Things)

I feel a bit like Nero.

You know, the Roman Emperor who fiddled while his empire burned to ash behind him?

That Nero.

I show up here and I fiddle about books and Happy Things (cookies! fall leaves!) and soliloquize about How Adorable My Kids Looked in Halloween Costumes of Yore (I wrote and scheduled that particular post before someone poured gasoline on the flames).

And behind me, it feels like the whole world is on fire. Across the globe, yes, but also in my own life.

I know there is fire. I feel the heat and I see it and smell it and I hear it; it has already started to consume things I love. Yet, I still feel the need to fiddle. Partially because this is a coping mechanism, partially as a form of outright denial about the reality that THERE IS A FIRE AT MY BACK…but also, playing the fiddle makes me happy and gives me a momentary reprieve from trying to fight a raging fire with a water pistol.

But sometimes the flames get too close and I catch on fire.

I made a last-minute appointment with my family doctor today when my heart – and mind – felt like they were covered with third-degree burns (melodramatic, I know, but I started with this analogy and apparently I am going down with that ship).

I wrote myself a note to read out loud – I didn’t trust myself to make it through my spiel without support – and here is how I started it:

I thought it was me.

I went on to quickly and unemotionally list various traumas and challenges from the last decade, prefacing each one with the line: I thought it was me.

When I got to the end of the list – by this time sobbing and shaking uncontrollably – she grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said: You forgot to say the most important bit.

It wasn’t me.

I did think it was me. I wanted to keep everyone happy, solve all the problems, protect my kids, and live life as easily as possible. But shitty things happen (pardon the language) and some really shitty things have happened, especially in the last two years.

I cannot solve everyone’s problems or heal everyone’s hurts (including my own) and that truth is, at times, a very heavy burden.

Where does faith come in? You don’t come here for a sermon and I don’t show up to give one. But an obvious question in the middle of all this personal unrest would be Where is God? In moments of distress don’t believers and non-believers alike cry out to the Almighty? So, as a believer, all the more I have to ask: Where is my God?

He’s here. I can’t always sense Him, but my Jesus is the same Jesus. The same yesterday and today and forever. I know it in my bones. (But I’m admittedly weary to my core.)

I started with fiddles so it’s fitting to include some music. I have listened to this song so many times over the last few months it has unintentionally become my anthem for 2023.

FIVE HAPPY THINGS

I need to keep fiddling:

• Kids excited about Halloween costumes.
• Hot showers.
• The internet – easy access to music, blogs, connection.
• Glow sticks.
• Reading week at the university so my workload is light.

Header photo by Johanna Vogt on Unsplash