A long, long time ago we had a corporate team-building day thingy which took the form of 'It's a Knockout'.  My team, named by my staff 'Catriona and the Slaves' came a very creditable fourth and of course the organisers played the above song every time they mentioned us.  That has zippo to do with my thoughts, but reflects the general mush of my brain at the moment.

Today has felt like walking on sunshine - the first day since my diagnosis when I have not felt scared.  I went for a picnic in the park, and when no one was around to see went into the hall at church and spun myself round til I was dizzy, in the way a child does, just for the joy of being alive.

I don't think I'd ever really known proper fear until the last few weeks.  There are plenty of things I'm afraid of, notably edges of train platforms, live electrics and drowning (hopefully not all at once) but these risks remain readily avoidable.  The last few weeks have seen real fear: the 'what if' of waiting for test results, the overactive imagination that overules commonsense and deduces that 2+2 = 38.

It's not that anything suddenly changed, except that now I have the information (all bar the original definitely good) and I no longer fear what I do not know.  That doesn't mean I won't get scared again, it just means for now I am not.

All of which made me wonder how life must be for those who live in permanent fear.  Never able to sleep properly, never able to relax, never able to spin round til they are dizzy for the fun of it.

There are too many twee little Christian ditties about Jesus taking our fears away, and they deny the reality of his own agonised hours in Gethsemane and at Calvary.  On Sunday we will be singing the golden oldie 'Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness' which contains these two lines...

"... mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness

trust for our trembling and hope for our fear"

This seems neither to deny the reality of fear nor to suggest it is easily evaporated, rather it speaks of hope despite, in or through it.

Tomorrow I begin a metaphorical uphill climb that will last until the end of December, assuming I manage to keep on schedule, with half a dozen stiles or gates or bends (I'm not sure which they are yet) along the way. I may well get scared again.  For now, though, I enjoy the gift of this day, walk on the sunshine, dance in my own living room (at least metaphorically) and give thanks to God for the beauty of this pause on my 'long distance footpath'