The Gloom

In small town Hillsdale, MI, gloom is an almost constant companion throughout the winter and well into spring. The rare days that the sun breaks through the misty sky are treasured and celebrated. As quickly as the sun makes it’s presence known, it slips back out of sight. No matter how long you live here, you never quite grow accustom to it.

The gloom that lingers over the town is the same feeling of dread you find within yourself when you are lacking Light. It’s depressing. When I think back on most of my college days I see this large, foggy, gray cloud hovering over me. Sometimes, it’s a physical gray cloud because those kind of days happen quite often. But, more so, I’m speaking to an internal gray cloud.

One day, I couldn’t pull myself out of bed. I kept drifting back to sleep and falling into all sorts of weird dreams. In one of them, I was walking through a store searching for new pens when a squirrel started running right at me. I went to kick the squirrel away, but he dug his sharp teeth into my foot, and I began to fall. I landed upon a stoney ground in a dark abyss (think the chamber of secrets in Harry Potter). The moment I hit the ground I felt my soul leave, and I was consumed by this nothingness. I knew instantly that it was a lack of the presence of God. This horrible feeling of being separated from Him.

I would love to tell you I had a dramatic conversion like St. Paul. But instead, I ran to tell my friends, and we had a good laugh about the weirdness of the dream. I was a little shaken from it, and in the back of my mind I wondered about it often.

Now when I think of that dream and its impact on me, I am filled with gratitude. What a horrible feeling, to be separated from God, to live with the drudgery and dread of gray clouds consuming your being. Worse yet, many people live in this state now while they are alive. Their days are filled with gray clouds.

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.

J.K Rowling

Maybe, the light that needs to be turned on is the source of all Light. The gloomy days are a choice we have made to push Him away. They often stem from ingratitude and a lack of purpose for our lives. If we new what it felt like to be separated completely from God, we wouldn’t let it happen. We would realize our sole purpose is to seek Him in everything we do and run unceasingly toward Him – toward the Light.

The gloomy days will come and go, but what you choose to make of them will linger on.