Regrouping

There is a crazy rainstorm outside! I got soaked from walking about 30 meters from my house to my car, and again from the car to my church.

I find Vancouver weather really weird. Every morning I wake up is an adventure to see what the weather will be like, even more so than when I was in Calgary with the four season days. People had warned me about the climate induced depression here, and I can definitely see this being a factor for many Vancouver residents. As someone who has teetered on that side of life (depression) before, I'd be lying if I said I've been unaffected by the days of rain without sun.

One other thing is that when I started driving here, I was told a few times that I need to have my headlights on when it rains even if it's at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I thought it was a bit strange that I should do so, but I did it anyway because I trust the people who've been living here a lot more than I do myself. I didn't realize how important it was to have my lights on until I noticed the cars that didn't have them on - that's the point, I didn't notice them. You won't see the cars if they don't have their lights on, so never have I ever been so appreciative about having good headlights. I'd rather be driving in the rain where all the lights reflect off the road, but at least I know that there are cars there, rather than driving and not seeing cars at all.

I've hit a bit of a wall at church over the last couple weeks. I'm not exactly sure where or what caused the halt in my progress, but it was a battle. After having prayed and thought it over for a week, I'm starting to gain a bit of light as to where the issue came from. I think that some of the internal struggles and burdens that I've had to carry were likely one area of cause that made me hit a rut. I place such high expectations on myself, and with me being a new pastor, now that I've been "released" into ministry, I'm having one of those moments similar to a young bird learning how to fly. After the first few flaps of the wing, you realize that there's literally nothing keeping you up other than yourself. So out of a slight panic, you might fumble, fall and forget all the techniques you may have been taught.

As for me, I wouldn't go as far as saying there's no help, though it can feel that way because it's now up to me to approach people rather than having them watch me 24/7.

Nevertheless, I think church stuff is still going well. There's just far too many things for me to be able to give all my attention to, so I hope people don't mind giving me some time to address the more urgent things first. Christmas things are coming up, and the one question I don't like being asked is if I'm going home for Christmas. I would love to go home, but that's just not possible anymore, unless you're willing to let your pastor go for two weeks while you have to do all the Christmas things yourself.

So, other than that, I don't really have too much to update. I'll throw this one prayer request out there for those that read. If you read my blog, you deserve to know it because you're awesome that way; and in a sense, it's also a bit personal so I wouldn't just openly throw it out to everyone. However, it is urgent and important enough that I need to share it. Here it is:

I'm beginning to feel a tremendous force of darkness growing inside of me. You can probably trace it all the way back to when I started this position, but I started noticing it just last week. I think it's fair to say that it is a spiritual attack of some sort, to try to use my fears against me. A few times I've gone home each night to a really dark vision. I saw myself on Christmas night sitting alone on my couch staring at a cake of some sort with a stone cold expression. I had a small Christmas tree that was dimly lit, and the rest of the room was dark. The vision stops there, but I think the picture drawn from it speaks loud and clear what the situation is: being alone, isolated, abandoned, consumed by darkness. I could go on and on describing what the scenario implies, but I think you get the point.

Yeah, there you have it. I'm doing what I can to surround myself with what I need in order to make it through this, but it isn't easy when I live by myself because I'm forced to have at least several hours of being alone. You can read my previous post about what being alone has done to me.

So, I apologize for such a dark tone in my blog because I think we should focus on what's important that is coming up! Christmas season is here and it is definitely my favorite time of year.