Peace with my season of being "fallow"

After three months of not touching a PC (or a laptop even for that matter), I am now documenting my fresh thoughts on a full-sized keyboard and I can't even begin to explain how much joy is there in this simple, unspectacular occurrence.

That also marks the three months I've been jobless and not burning days, nights and weekends for what was a sorry excuse for a job.

The last week was spent in relative agony both physically and emotionally. The physical ailment eventually took a toll on the emotional health and I spiraled downwards faster than one can say "Jack Robinson". The endless rounds of antibiotics (20 pills a day) weakened me considerably and left me vacillating in and out of a feverish state. In those moments, I pondered the reason for my existence and felt utterly useless now that I neither have a job or an excuse not to have one. I have taken my vacations and rested aplenty and was now languishing. Never mind that I had a fever but my self-worth was reduced to nought as I dragged myself from bed to kitchen to get a glass of water. I measured everything that I was with what I do and when that was obliterated, I vanquished.

After close to a full week of self-induced despair and antibiotics, a thought came to me today that this was but a fallow period. Plots of land had to be left fallow at every seventh year for rest in order to gear them up for subsequent bountiful harvests. That was an interesting train of thought I never had and I thanked God for the change in perspective. I repented against ranting against Him while I was in the doldrums and am glad He chose to be forgiving and graciously spoke to me after my internal wilful rage settled. Interestingly, this is also the seventh year since I joined the workforce. Now, I'm determined that however long this fallow period is, I am to submit it to the Lord and not let it lay waste even as it rests. I endeavour to submit this rest fully to the giver of rest so that for the seasons ahead, I can be fruitful and yield bountifully.

Suffice to say, I think I have truly exhausted all my available natural resources in various empty pursuits in the last seven years. Some have yielded while others have left me sorely disappointed and disillusioned. Each time,I picked up only to repeat similar feats of stupidity again and predictably, arrive at the same point of disillusionment.

I hope this time will be truly different as God works out His purposes in and through me. In this time of leanness, I also pray that I be content and not be seduced by the trappings of comfort and affluence that I have previously either over-indulged in or unknowingly lusted after. After so long of seeing these things as a birth-right, I am ashamed to say I do not really know how to survive without them. My soul has been satiated and weakened like a flabby fat man.

Now, I cannot hope that the days ahead are easier but I hope that His strength will be made perfect in whatever weaknesses I manifest and that I will meet adversity with a different noble spirit if deliverance is not speedy.

It's through all these that I finally understand patience. Indeed , it is not the ability to wait but the attitude while waiting. Waiting was imposed on me. I do not have a choice. But how I respond while waiting weighs on my choice and this time, I hope to exercise that choice well.