A New Way To View The Dark

 I know what it's like to walk in darkness. To feel like your soul is wrapped in a heavy shroud it cannot shake. To feel like you're perpetually tired because you fight battles in the night of your heart that are only known to you and to God. To sense the weight of a pain you are unable to escape. To feel the abandonment of everyone...even the Lord Himself. To look for light but to see none. To get so desperate for a freedom you think you'll never find that you consider doing the unthinkable. Darkness can drive anyone mad. It almost did me. 

Twelve years ago, I sat in the bedroom of a friend's house following one of the worst days of my life. It was supposed to be a day of celebrating her birthday - hiking, food, fun in the sun. But there was no light to be found anywhere now. My dad had ended up in the hospital that day and now looked to be at death's door. I was eighteen and had just graduated from high school. I thought I had the world at my disposal to go and make a difference. To change it for good. But somehow, all those well-wishes for a future of happiness brought me no peace in a moment like this. All I wanted was escape. Just to have somebody tell me this was a dream and that it wasn't happening. But it was. 

I sat there in the darkness, shaking like a leaf being blown in a cold windstorm with barely a stem of hope to hang on to. I knew I couldn't wake up my friend. But I was so scared to be alone. Scared to face this darkness feeling unequipped to handle the weight of something like this. And so, I did the only thing I knew to do at that point - pray. But see, even that didn't come easy. I'd long since cracked open my Bible and church was more social than anything else for me. I had a childhood faith to fall back on but the personal belief wasn't there. Frankly, I told God in that moment that I wasn't even sure how to speak to Him or if He would even listen. I told Him I didn't even think I knew Him at all. But I knew enough to know that only He could help us at a time so desperate as this. 

I walk along my neighborhood road the other day and notice a bird sitting stunned in the middle of the road. Perhaps a car ran over the top of it, and it got scared? I talk to it. It finally flies off, seemingly okay. But just maybe I know what it's like to not know where you are. Just maybe I know how it feels to be lost in your own fog and not have any idea how to break free. Just maybe I know what soul-stun is all about. And can I find the courage to fly away and be at rest like the bird David once saw? 

The hours ticked by that night all those years ago. I would alternate between sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering what the future held and then trying to grab some disturbed sleep when and where I could. When I did nod off, I would often wake up in a cold sweat, heart beating fast, chest tight, and thinking I had just had the worst nightmare of all time. Except this was no dream. It was reality. Little did I know the soul-nightmare would go on for several more years before the light arrived. 

After that night happened, our family walked through years of health scares and medical problems  with my dad, many more losses of friends and family and, of course, the on-going struggle of dealing with the soul-wounds I incurred from all this. Suffering became the norm. And I all but turned my back on all I believed in. I thought hope was dead. I thought God had left. He was graciously persistent enough to eventually show me otherwise. 

Since that awful night, I have had many more occasions where the darkness has been more of a friend to me than I'd like to admit. Twelve years have gone by now in which I've walked with my fairly constant companions depression and anxiety as a result of the emotional trauma I endured. Even though the Light has long since broken through and now I know how to get myself to return to its rest in God when the darkness sets in, I have never forgotten what it was like once to face that darkness with no sense of meaning or purpose. 

I've always loved Psalm 139. I well recall it being one of the passages my mom had me commit to memory when I was little. But somehow, one phrase in it is just now becoming understood. And I let it sink it deep...because this promise contained in it has the power to help me withstand the dark days when they come: 

"...even the darkness is not dark to You..."

And just perhaps this is the same truth echoed in my life verse John 8:12...

"...I am the Light of the World. He who follows me 

shall not walk in darkness but will have the light of life."

Truth is always so obvious but yet sometimes can feel so hidden. So complicated. So...darkened. But just maybe I'm the one looking on it with darkened eyes and that "dark glass" the Apostle Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 13:12 is what keeps me from fully seeing the spiritual reality for what it is. Because if the darkness is not dark to God, and those who follow Him will always have His light to guide them through it, then it is merely a lie to think that we face the darkness alone. 

In realizing that this, this is the way to courageously fight all soul-scares, I'm discovering that fear is my biggest enemy when the darkness comes. The darkness itself is not to be feared. It can't do anything to me with God at my side. Fear is the biggest threat to my peace. And when faith leaves, then fear becomes an easy but horrible substitute. When faced with moments where that dilemma takes place, I must continually remember that, even when it goes against my natural feelings of what to do, taking the hand of the Lord Jesus is always the first step. When the shadows seem to have covered up the Light, I must look for the Light greater than all my fears to chase them away. 

My dark days aren't so frequent as they once were. But I still have them. I've stopped expecting the anxiety and the depression to fully leave me because I find that it's only given me false hope of being "normal" again...whatever that means. I'm realizing that I've gained greater peace in simply accepting that these friends of mine may be companions for life. That God, in His mysterious plan, may work more good through my weaknesses than I could ever hope to have happen in my strengths. That learning to walk through and not run away from the doubts, fears, and struggles is really the heart of the Christian fight. 

I know what it's like to walk in darkness. But I also know what it's like to discover the Light. And I'm slowly attempting to learn the art of this new way to view the dark. Some days I get it down better than others. But through it all, I hold fast to the surety that His grip on me in the dark times is far more to be trusted than my grip on Him. And, because He holds me fast, I can accept these times when they come, knowing that they will not last forever and that the Light will always return.