Last weekend, I took the dogs for a walk around a field near our house. I often refer to it as out 'my field' because I walk there so regularly. It's become a place where I can process, think, reflect, and pray. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen the photos.

One of the things that I love about this field is that on a regular basis I see a red kite flying overhead. More or less every time I go to 'my field', I see at least one, if not half a dozen of these beuatiful birds of prey, soaring overhead.

And for me, for some unknown reason, they are a sign of God's presence. Of God's love. Of God's goodness.

When I was a child, they were relatively rare, and there was a big effort to reintroduce them to Britain and increase their population. So seeing them as a child was very exciting. The avian equivalent of yellow car. It only happened occasionally. Now I see them all the time. So much so, that when I'm out I only have to think about a red kite, and I usually see one. As a result I get very regular reminders that God is with me.

But last weekend I took the dogs out after it had been raining. It was a muddy, bleak, and grey winter's day (and there have been a lot of them this year!). I was also full of cold, my head was swimming, and I really wanted to be wrapped up inside. And there was not one red kite in the sky. There were crows. There was a jackdaw or two. Oddly, even a seagull.

But no kites. And it got me thinking. What do we do with days like this? When God's presence and His goodness seems pretty absent?

About 15 years ago, I wasn't asking that kind of question. I wasn't thinking about the rainy, kite-free days that interrupt an otherwise regular reminder of grace. 15 years ago, I felt like I was in a very dark place. There was no sense that God was a God of grace at all. 15 years ago, I once found myself walking around a field in the east midlands of England, asking the question of why did God's love feel like hate? Every day seemed like darkness. God's goodness, seemed entirely absent. There was no 'light at the end of the tunnel.' I'd seen enough for part of me to know that God was somewhere. But the situation I was in felt nightmareish. One of the scriptures that saw me through that time was a verse from Job 30:20. "I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me."

15 years ago, I was longing for a single day of sunshine. The spiritual equivalent of a single red kite. I held on, I didn't know the way and I wasn't sure how change was possible. [Sometimes my stubborness has been useful!] But change came. Slowly, steadily. In all kinds of ways. Spiritual work is hard work. Spiritual work is laboursome work. But it is also good work. And I'm grateful to be able to look back and know that even if I found myself in a similar space today, this week, or even for a lengthy season, I know that light comes into darkness. I know that even if it doesn't feel like it, seem like it, and experience points in the other direction: God is good. He has not forgotten me. And I will see light again.

And if you're in the endless tunnel of darkness: I see you. There are no easy fixes. There's no magic cure. But hold on. It might seem ludicrously impossible and maybe insane to say: but the best is yet to come.

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Photo by Doncoombez on Unsplash