I live in Kent in England and we have just experienced the most rain in any  January since records began around 100 years ago.

So I have come to learn a thing or two about clouds 🙂

I have recently had the experience of breakthrough! In the truest sense of the word. The kind of breakthrough that we pray for ,I feel has just happened in my life. Most importantly it has been in my thinking and how I feel generally about life and ministry. This brings me to the title of this post – When the cloud lifts it is as if they were never there.

My breakthrough started on a Sunday listening to a message in a Church, but not the one I lead. I started to feel ‘right’ or ‘normal’ again. It brought to an end a tough season of self doubt, frustration and wondering about my future.

It was as if I had never hit a tough patch in how I was feeling. It was as if life had never been tough, as if I had never been down about my perceived lack of progress or forward motion with regards to Church growth , finances etc.

On a bright summers day even though the depth of winter was just a couple of months ago , it is weirdly difficult to remember and feel what winter was like.

It is the same with tough times, we hit them, we experience them, long time or short time we live there but when it passes it is done. Then we forget how we got out of it, we forget how we sustained through it, we forget importantly what we learn’t.

So when we go through tough times again it is kind of like we have to learn all over again. Seems like a waste of time. My advice based from very recent experience ….. don’t waste a good life crisis, melt down or tough season.

What did you learn from your last really tough season in life?