Blue Monday

Today is, apparently, Blue Monday. It's supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. There's a formula to calculate it and everything.

With thoughts, efforts and energies being spent creating ideas like this, no wonder it's so depressing!

Whilst I don't buy into Blue Monday (I don't know any who do), lets suppose it was true. What can be done to sort this, to lift spirits, and prepare people for the no doubt miserable day ahead?

According to Starbucks, the solution is "a Tall latte for just £1.50 when you visit us before 11am". Yes people, the solution is coffee. So this is where we've all been going wrong...

On a slightly less sarcastic note, it's true that winter, and January in particular can be a bit of a downer. It's cold, it's dark, Christmas is done with, there are 12 long weeks or so until Easter time, and who know's when Spring will show its face.

However, if we don't go through the winter, we don't reach the summer.

Metaphorically speaking, we have to go through the hard times to get to the happiness. Nobody promises you an easy ride, least of all God. Matthew 6:34 reads:

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34, NIV)

Life is full of...well...the stuff of life. And that means it gets messy. But it is also full of so, so much more than whatever is dragging you down.

The only thing that is ever going to get you through that mess is hope. A light at the end of the tunnel, if you like. Something that makes you go "Oh, yes. There you are. I forgot about you for a while there. Everything is going to be just fine, simply because you're here."

People can be great this. I can have the most rubbish day, and then come home to my best friends or my family and just know that, really, none of it matters. They have this instant effect of making all of that just disappear, and wrapping you up in a ball of loveliness. I would like to call this the "I just want my mum" effect. Replace the 'mum' with whomever you like. Dad, sibling, husband, wife, that one friend who knows you inside out and back to front, whatever resonates with you.

For some, hope comes in the form of music. Or art. Or cooking. Or writing. That one thing that you are just meant to do. When you're doing it, everything else just falls away. Something that gets you both fired-up and passionate, and give a peaceful sense of 'this is what I was made for' all at the same time. If you haven't got this form of hope, maybe you just haven't found that one thing yet. Or you're trying to do somebody else's thing instead. I'm not sure I've found mine yet - but that's okay. I'll keep searching.

And finally - and most importantly - my hope falls in God. (Here we go, you say. I was wondering when that one was going to be pulled out the bag).

Again and again He just blows my mind with how amazingly beautiful He really is. He is relentlessly chasing me down until, the fact is, I just can't run anymore. There is just no way around it. I can question every single little bit of my life, and go round in circles in my head on whether x is right or wrong, should y be allowed or not. And then I can just be sitting quietly, and there He is. I forgot about Him for a while there. Everything is going to be just fine, simply because He's here.

The people that I met at Ethembeni over the summer taught me this, and I think it's about time I grasped it.

There's a worship song with the following words:

"Incomparable, Unchangeable. You've seen the depths of my heart and you love me the same. You are amazing, God."

He knows me, inside and out. He created me, and gave me those gifts that I'm made to do, that make everything make sense. He is pursuing me, with a heart that loves me more than I can comprehend. And absolutely nothing is ever going to change that.

I think, maybe, that's quite enough hope for me.