The Foggiest Idea

Spring on our farm means three things: rain, mud, and fog. The rain and the mud are necessary evils. The fog? A fantastical delight for all of us.

I fell in love with fog in Western Washington, where I could count on thick blankets of the stuff to roll up the hill towards our house on crisp fall mornings. It always seemed like a kind of weather-related poetry to me to see it climb over the grass, erasing the familiar outlines of the landscape until the sun broke through and forced it loose from the earth and set it free into the sky. I would often pour my morning coffee, then step outside to swing open the back gate so I could enjoy the white haze from my kitchen table while sipping. Call me nuts (I’ve never denied it), but I found it soothing.

The first morning last spring when I opened the curtains here and saw a dense, murky fog, my heart leapt. Like so many details of Floating Axe Farm, this one seemed specially chosen for me by the God who knows my inmost being. Heather likes hearing rain on a metal roof? Check. Afternoons filled with wild wind gusts? Check. Shallow creeks for wading? Check. Morning fog? Check.

This week, our first foggy morning greeted us. It was a heavy, still fog that reduced the rising sun to a pale, watery glow. We all marveled at it— some of us from the kitchen from behind our coffee, and others as we stepped out of our slippers and into our mud boots to go exploring. The littles exploded into the depths of the fog, out of sight the moment they pressed beyond the chicken yard. I walked the perimeter of the largest pole barn listening to their whoops of joy as “Marco Polo” suddenly became a game worth playing, and was scolded by our juvenile Barred Rock rooster, who was patently unimpressed with his sudden inability to scan the horizon and ensure the hens’ safety.

I was struck by how our property, which now feels familiar and known beneath my feet, was suddenly an alien landscape. I knew our brush pile was thirty steps or so away, but I couldn’t make it out. I saw the trodden grass that marked our path to the creek, but it disappeared into a curtain of mist instead of pointing clearly to the tree line and the slope that leads to the bed. The sun was clearly overhead, but it, too, was shrouded, diminished.

I was reminded of a Message translation I had once read of 1 Corinthians 13:12:

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

I thought of all the places in my life where I’m currently walking blind, trusting that the path leads somewhere sure. I pictured the journey we’re on with Phineas, Mathaus leaving for college in the fall, the state of our missions support, the new countries Christopher will be teaching in this year, the task of homeschooling all the varied needs of our kiddos. I thought of so many of my friends, facing their own fog of broken marriages, frightening diagnoses, hurt hearts, unemployment, prodigal children, new beginnings.

I wondered where we are all going— what God’s plan is for the myriad voices I know call out to Him each and every morning when the fog rolls in and the doubts get heavy and the things we know are true and right seem just out of sight. My heart began to ache when I realized that these things only become known with time, and even so, the endings may not be the ones I’d choose. Then I noticed the diffused light that hung all around me, glowing evidence that the sun I couldn’t quite see was present, hovering just above the white covering on the ground.

It was there, lighting the way. The things I could see, even in the mist? I could see them because of the sun. It was breaking in to the enveloping fog, not giving me the ability to see for miles, but illuminating just enough to allow me to make my way safely. Eventually, its heat would burn off the haze entirely, giving me long views and clearer vision.

It’s not always easy to accept the fog of our current situation. We want God to push the clouds back, to give us a clear picture of the final story. Often, He allows us to wander in a fog that forces us to rely on Him, and to step slowly, carefully, in a faith we struggle to hold on to day by day and minute by minute. But just like the fog I so enjoy during the short season where it greets me in the morning, our time waiting is also relatively brief. The sun will come out. It will break through the mist. And we will, eventually, be given a long-range view of how each step took us closer to our purpose in Christ.