Last year when I quit blogging and then started up again, I shared that I had finally found a reason for some of my struggles (Now I Know: Seasonal Affective Disorder). It was a relief to have a diagnosis. It also has helped me better prepare myself for these challenges.
Over the last week or so I can tell that the SAD is starting up again. I’m thankful that it is the middle of February so hopefully there will only be about six more weeks before it will lift.
People who have never experienced depression will often say, “Just stop thinking about it” or “Don’t worry so much” or “Get busy and it will go away”. Unless you have experienced it, you can’t fully understand how counterproductive those kinds of comments are to the one suffering.
I mention all this today because I read a comment on another blog that was about dealing with winter. The mom mentioned that she liked her son so much better in the summer than in the winter. My first thought was that perhaps the child is suffering from SAD. One of the ways SAD can manifest itself is feelings of frustration. In a child that could easily come out as anger and aggressiveness.
Anyway, my goal in writing this is to make people aware that winter can be very hard on some people. It isn’t something they can snap out of at will. I imagine it can impact children as well.
This timely devotional from Streams in the Desert was a blessing to me when I read it this morning.
The Father’s Hand by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
“Your heavenly Father knoweth” (Matt. 6:32).
A visitor at a school for the deaf and dumb was writing questions on the blackboard for the children. By and by he wrote this sentence: “Why has God made me to hear and speak, and made you deaf and dumb?”
The awful sentence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow in the face. They sat palsied before that dreadful “Why?” And then a little girl arose.
Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming with tears. Straight to the board she walked, and, picking up the crayon, wrote with firm hand these precious words: “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!” What a reply! It reaches up and lays hold of an eternal truth upon which the maturest believer as well as the youngest child of God may alike securely rest–the truth that God is your Father.
Do you mean that? Do you really and fully believe that? When you do, then your dove of faith will no longer wander in weary unrest, but will settle down forever in its eternal resting place of peace. “Your Father!”
I can still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken and darken the very air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight. –Arthur Christopher Bacon
No chance hath brought this ill to me;
‘Tis God’s own hand, so let it be,
He seeth what I cannot see.
There is a need-be for each pain,
And He one day will make it plain
That earthly loss is heavenly gain.
Like as a piece of tapestry
Viewed from the back appears to be
Naught but threads tangled hopelessly;
But in the front a picture f air
Rewards the worker for his care,
Proving his skill and patience rare.
Thou art the Workman, I the frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy Name,
Perfect Thine image on the same.
–Selected
