Fighting the Fall Funk
There are plenty of reasons to love fall: some folks are enjoying cooler days, beautifully colored leaves, and for many there's football. We know just around the bend are the holidays too.
But I can’t kick the Fall Funk. Rather than anticipating, I'm apprehensive. It’s a pervasive sense that what I think is tough now, is only going to get much tougher.
I don't always succumb to the Fall Funk, but this year it's a battle between being ruled by my feelings or choosing to rule over them. My remedy is to get away and reset my internal GPS (God’s Positive Solution).
The challenge for me at this point in my life is thinking that I can figure it all out by myself. I trust my own wisdom. Yet, I’ve made some epic blunders with this sort of bravado. My husband likens this attitude to knowing just enough to be dangerous.
Knowing my Fall Funk danger levels were rising, I headed to a mountaintop. From this vantage, the eagles soar at head level. Clouds float by and can be felt. The sounds reaching my ears are not from people. Nature is so close that it seems that I no longer imagine God; it is abundantly clear that He was here first.
I walked out to the bluff and breathed deeply. I gazed upon the water, the sky, and the treetops. I felt closer to God. Even though He’s always available, my problem is that I’m not.
In the world far below, I have a tendency to think about all the problems and forget the One who is in control. I think I can cope. I think I have the answers. But so many of the problems are out of my control. Hence, my Fall Funk.
Looking out over the wide expanse before me, I become smaller. It is then that my view of God becomes bigger. I sense that I need to go back and do what I can and trust that God will do what I can’t.
Returning to ground level, not everything was figured out, but I was reminded that I know the One who does. If my Fall Funk returns, I just need to remember to come back to Him. And I don’t have to go to a mountaintop to find Him. He’s as close as my heart and just a prayer away.