February can be a difficult month. The days are often still grey, wet and cold. Spring seems far away. Yet there are ways to reduce our naturally low mood and energy levels, by looking for the light in our lives.
The image above was created to express this concept that even when the grey seems to prevail, when we intentionally look for the light, we realise it is there all along- temporarily hidden rather than absent.
We are not asked to ignore any feelings of despondency and gloom, but rather to notice how we are feeling and name our sadness rather than denying it.
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God…
(Psalm 42:11 )
Scripture encourages us to share our feelings with God, and God meets us in our honesty and downheartedness. In the greyness of the February fug, I often turn to the raw honesty of the Psalms that can echo my own inner turmoil. They provide reassurance that I am not alone in feeling downhearted, despondent or dismayed.
The winter months are short on light, and this year, especially so. Lacking sunlight decreases our vitamin D and Serotonin levels that help provide us with calm, focus, and emotional stability. So, instead I try to notice the light elsewhere; choosing to notice small sparks of good things around me that give me life and hope.
Light can be found in unexpected places, when we intentionally look for it, training our eyes to see God at work in subtle ways, recognising that glimmers of light offer us a biblical illustration of hope, presence, and promise.
The small green shoots emerging from the cold earth, waiting for the sun’s warmth to sprout and bloom, the sparkle of raindrops on the grass, the warmth and comfort of a favourite mug in my hands filled with refreshing tea, the beauty exposed on the cutting board’s surface as I slice open a cabbage to prepare a meal, a comfy chair to rest in at the end of a busy day.
These small glimmers of light can lift our spirits, redirecting inward discouragement outwards in gratitude and upwards in praise.
That’s not to minimise those hard days, but to manage them and meet God in them.
When we are struggling with our own positivity, it can be easy to hide away, yet as God’s people, we are called to be in community so that others can lift us up when we are down, offering the warmth of encouragement and support in the coldest and hardest of seasons.
Even through the grey days, our response to others (who may also have unseen struggles) is to have an attitude of kindness and compassion. For, in bearing and sharing even the small pinpricks of light that we find in these grey seasons, we become Bearers of His Light, brightening the journey for both others and ourselves.
It is February, the season of greyness but we know that March will come.
Spring will arrive. The light always returns.
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:5)
God, with us always; present through every season, grey skies or blue.
Thank God!
