The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Psalm 23:1

When it feels like God has withdrawn His presence, the days are covered in thick fog that lasts throughout the entire day, and the perception as obscure as the overcast sky. Everything loses its colors and it feels like walking with my eyes closed.

So far, my reaction to this absence of His presence was to question everything. In doubt, I ask myself if I had done anything wrong, or if I had upset God somehow. With my clinical depression, it is hard to draw a clear line between the depressive episode, and the spiritual dryness sometimes. One question leads to another doubt, and another doubt leads to more anxiety, and soon enough, I act out of my uncertainty, trying to change something, anything if that could make the negative symptoms disappear. But by acting out of my own will, I was only digging my own grave. Finally I learned to surrender, and seek His grace instead, not my self-made grave, whether I feel His presence or not. I have learned that feeling is deceiving. But with my hypersensitivity, it is not easy to break the habit of relying on my senses.

Today, I decided to count my blessings and take time to remember what God has given me when His grace was overflowing my senses. When a simple smile of a stranger felt like the whole heavens smiling on me, the happiness I felt at that moment was not to be taken for granted. It indeed came from heaven. God blessed me with His joy, His happiness, and His pleasure, and I was able to more than smiling along with someone purely because of His grace.

Beethoven continued to compose his music even after his hearing was impaired gravely. That’s a mighty powerful example of what human souls are capable of. God given gift cannot be taken away under any circumstances. What ears cannot hear, the soul still hears, and one cannot take away what is instilled by God within the purity of one’s soul. When we remain in God, grace remains, and His holy gifts continue to shower down on us, until the thick clouds break down and God shines His eternal face making His presence known to all His creation.

… For two years I have avoided almost all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to say to people “I am deaf”. If I belonged to any other profession it would be easier, but in my profession it is a frightful state…

– Beethoven

“It has been pointed out that in most of his instrumental works no less than in his opera “Fidelio” and the Ninth Symphony, the latter ending with a choral finale on Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, Beethoven reveals and depicts the inner struggle against and triumphant victory over doubt.” source   * Ode to Joy starts at 44:30.