Sight In the Dark

 My mind runs back to the last evening we were on the East Coast for our recent vacation. Our schedule had been so busy that a late night drive into Washington DC to see the monuments was our last opportunity to do so. So...we hit the road at 9:30 in the evening and spent the next few hours walking around the National Mall, looking at the monuments at night. 

 The monuments are beautiful and moving anytime you visit them but there's something special about seeing them lit up at night. You can see the definitions of the sculptures almost clearer than during the day. There was something extra powerful about seeing those amazing structures standing majestically silhouetted against the dark night sky. 

 This experience made me realize that our lives are much the same...we sometimes need the night seasons to help us to see things that would otherwise be hidden if we lived in the daylight all the time. If everything stayed easy and prosperous all the time and we never experienced the darkness, we would not fully appreciate things in their full depth and definition. Our grasp of the essential truths about ourselves and about the God who loves us would be shrouded in deeper mystery if we didn't see them at the dark times. 

 In this moment, I feel it driving into my soul - yes, Lord. You must take me through the darkness in order to fully embrace and know the light. You must show me things not just in the broad daylight of the human experience, but You must also take me for a walk through the heart at the times of hardship...because You know this is when I will understand. This is when I will listen. This is when I will see You for who You truly are.

So let me accept these times as being for my benefit. And let me learn all I can. For someday I will reflect and will thank You for showing me these things not when things were going well...but when they weren't going well. Because otherwise, I might have not have fully embraced or truly loved. Instead, I might have simply walked by and not even noticed at all.