MAKE YOUR HOME IN THE DARKNESS

My way seems overcast today...and has for awhile now. I feel resistant. I am not finding gratitude easy to rest in...mainly because I'm not finding gratitude. It is with that as my center that I randomly opened my daily reader (which I all but never do), and the following was laid out before me:

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. *** No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing Him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling Him fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . . (from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel)

Oh, I could weep for joy. There. Right there are my God's loving directions: So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. 

The wartime adage, there are no atheists in foxholes, comes to mind...which to me backs my blinding flash of the obvious that fear is God's camouflage. Which gives me the same joy as the quote from The Cloud but, face it, The Cloud has more clout.

New adage: When feeling wobbly, go for the clout, take comfort in the BFO.

Thank you.