Something I Realised

While driving home tonight, I was listening to some music. A certain album that reminded me of a certain/specific time last year when I had previously listened to it a lot. It was about this time (October-December) when I did a lot of driving to and from Destiny College in the dark and in minus temperatures.

I know that does not sound like a great time, and I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed it all or didn’t have a bad attitude some of the time. Aside from my mood, listening to this particular album and driving when it’s seriously cold outside etc all took me back to that time quite vividly.

The memories I have of that time are a very mixed bag. Of course there are good and great ones from the festive season etc but something happened in December which somewhat tainted my memory.

This event I’m referring to will remain un-described along with everything and everyone else who I talk about on here: partly to protect the innocent, and partly because it’s not as “messy”.

As a result of this event, I found myself strangely stressed. Strange because I was in no way directly involved with it, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it and who it did involve.

I did a lot of praying at the time, one time in particular in tears, for those involved. I can only praise and thank God that everything seems to have turned out well with those involved getting on with their lives. This album will probably always remind me of that time, despite being a superb album musically; it now has a sense of melancholic hindsight laced through it, of which I really can’t understand how I feel about.

The point of that description was not sympathy-seeking, but rather to lead to my next one:
Why is it sometimes so difficult to explain how you truly feel about a person/situation?

Songwriter/Keys player of Finnish band Nightwish explained to a documentary-maker that due to the melancholic nature of Finnish men, made worse by his own introverted personality, he wrote songs of meaning to people he knew without them knowing. He could tell someone how much he appreciated them, or just to take a run-and-jump away from him, and even if they hear the song, they are none the wiser. Some might say that that’s the coward’s way of expressing themselves, but let me ask: How many people in your life know how you truly feel about them?

In terms of the event I mentioned from last year, the people/person involved meant and means a great deal to me, and I now have the task of somehow, sometime letting them know how I felt at that time and how much I care(d) for them. I now feel the need to push past the Scottish ‘Crisis of Confidence’ and the British stoicism and awkwardness around real emotion, to get something off of my chest and hopefully encourage someone.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

The phrase ‘blessed to be a blessing’ comes to mind, and is clearly not just about money/time/help etc. We can bless someone by simply comforting them in their troubles because we ourselves have already been comforted.

Give what you have already received.