What to Remember When the Future Is Foggy

Inside: Living through a foggy season can be disconcerting and exhausting. Here’s encouragement to keep pushing through to the other side. ~

“You know the end from the beginning. You go before me and you will be with me. You will never leave me nor forsake me.* Please give me faith to trust you more, even when I can’t see into the fog.”

This snippet from my prayer journal provides a good indication of where my heart and mind have been lately. As someone who likes to read the end of books first—or at least flip to later pages to see how a current plot twist is resolved—a foggy future is disconcerting.

I suppose the future is always foggy to one degree or another, but it seems thicker during certain seasons. Amid illness or financial problems. As the empty nest looms. When a loved one is nearing death. While waiting to adopt or give birth. After an unexpected loss.

How Fog Feels

Sometimes the fog is tinged with joy and expectation; sometimes it’s weighed down by sorrow. Then there are those occasions when the way ahead is marked more by question marks than specific emotions, which, ironically, also can result in anxiety.

Other kinds of fog have more to do with the present than the future. The fog of not sensing God’s presence, of fluctuating hormones, of depression, of grief, of memory loss. I could go on, but you get the picture. You could probably add to the list yourself.

A Key Truth

Although I don’t live in an area where actual fog is common, there’s a truth about this weather condition that I think is helpful to remember. Fog is disorienting, for sure. But when it overtakes an area, the trees and street signs and houses we can’t see are still there. They’re right where they were before the fog rolled in, and they’ll be there when the fog dissipates.

The same applies to metaphorical fog in some ways.

It’s easy to get confused or turned around when we’re living through a foggy patch. When we can’t see clearly, our minds can play tricks on us. We might get paranoid or start questioning truth or facts that normally stabilize us.

When the fog lifts, as it usually does, those foundational facts and truths are right where they’ve always been. They didn’t change, no matter what we thought or felt when we couldn’t see our hand in front of our face.

What To Do

So what can we do when the fog threatens to overwhelm us?

Pray: “Send your light and your truth; let them lead me.” (Psalm 43:4) I don’t always use the same words, but some variation of this request shows up frequently in my prayers, for myself and my loved ones.

Remember: Chances are, this is not the first time you’ve faced the fog of uncertainty, sadness or chaos. How has God worked in your life during past such seasons? What specific prayers did He answer? How did the situations work out?

You Will Survive

I want to tell you that it gets easier, this pushing through the fog. And in some ways, it does. Once you live through something you dreaded or perhaps thought would take you down, it can build confidence in other areas. Not that you can do it on your own, but that you will survive.

But fog is fog. And if you’re anything like me, it can be disconcerting and exhausting, no matter how many times we go through it.

It requires us to take one step at a time. To do the next right thing. To seek help if we need it. To sometimes put ourselves on autopilot and trust that God will direct and lead us through.

He will, you know.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.

* Deuteronomy 31:8