A Light in the Dark

Anyone else out there feeling some strange sense of relief that we are finally well into January? Feeling also a measure of guilt. A bit of a betrayer. Christmas came this year a little harder than hoped. For a few different reasons. 

One, It was the “off” year with our married kids so they wouldn’t be home for the holiday. That missing of kids at Christmas thing isn’t ever easy for any of us as parents. Even though we know it’s how it goes. Even though we are incredibly grateful for the wonderful in-law families provided our married children. We still miss them. Once someone said to me, “But, Jody, you have so many children, surely you don’t miss one or two.” Umm, No. That’s not quite how it works. I promise. Anyway, we know we need to share and we do. And we really try not to inadvertently put any kind of pressure on our kids in the process. Well, we try. 

On top of that, Rick and I both had the flu over Christmas. It crashed over me right in time for Christmas Eve. And made for quite a week. So that meant the kids who were planning to come the day after Christmas also could no longer come. Which meant no sweet grand baby girl under my Christmas tree this year. Plans derailed. Again, these things happen to all of us. I get it. But I didn’t like it. And I guess I just let it all get to me. 

So many people struggle in the holidays. In ways so much worse than some kid missing or flu getting. Loneliness and lack and sadness and sorrow can grow deeper when the rest of the world is rejoicing. I'm not sure I always got this or empathized very well, but this new season of life with cancer has marked me with a new understanding.

I’m not really sure I have words to explain how the holidays can feel for someone who has been given a statistical expiration date on the short side. I know I am not a statistic. I know God is in control of that date and all my days. He’s ordained them and knows the very number, but still, the weak, frail, human side of me flirts with the future in a not so nice way. And for some reason the holidays highlight this hesitation over my future.  I felt this way last year as it was my first Christmas stamped Stage Four and, I suppose, this year, it was much the same. Try as I did, I wasn’t able to completely combat or avoid it. 

There’s something so momentous and milestone-ish about a big holiday or a birthday or a brand new year. It's a clear marker of time. One Christmas to another Christmas. One year to another year. 2023 to 2024.  Resolutions and goals and Happy New Years. And all that “The Best is Yet to Come” stuff. All happening every time 12 months rolls around.  All of it feeling so sprightly pronounced. So brightly proclaimed. So big. 

I tried to keep it small. Manageable. Controlled and calm. But between the sadness and the sickness, I let it grow unmanageable and, most definitely, out of control. I found myself in a dark place. An angry place. An easily angered place. And though embarrassed this morning as I write, I confess, even a “poor me” kind of place. Pitiful.

I typically look on the bright side. I mostly try to find a silver lining and a sliver of hope. That eternal hallelujah in the hard. I try. But, is it okay to admit that doesn’t always happen as it should? As I want?

Maybe you have felt that way at times too. And wondered what’s wrong with you (with me)? 

Why can’t I get my emotional health together? 

Why can’t I pull myself up and out of this funk, this hole, this hurting.

Why is the darkness so dark? The anxiety so anxious? The sadness so sad? The struggle so real?

Is it a lack of gratitude? A lack of grace? A lack of grit? Or perhaps just a lack in general? And, by the way, if you weren't already spiraling downward, that kind of thinking will get you there really fast.

Is this how we all feel at some point, in some place, at some time? Maybe. 

Again, I’m embarrassed to admit it. I have so much for which to be thankful and grateful. So much. And I mostly keep that gratitude close by. So who am I to feel abandoned by God or doubt His goodness? Why am I so easily brought down? 

What is this weakness within me? 

But that is exactly it! There IS weakness within. Great weakness. And God knew that in my design. And He knows it in my day to day. And He sees it in my darkness when it comes screaming or seeping or crashing or creeping. He sees it. 

But, He doesn’t just know it and see it, He promises to meet it even in the very depths of my sorrowful soul.

He promises. And He proves true. Over and over and over again.

Psalm 139. I read it this morning and the words which I love and know well met me in a new and encouraging way.

“Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (vs. 12)

My darkness. My sadness. My valley. It is nothing for Jesus and His light. Even the darkness will not be dark for Him. There is no place I can go too dark or too deep for my Savior. 

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, EVEN THERE your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (vs. 9-10)

Why? 

Because He, “created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb … My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I woven together in the depths of the earth. You saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (vs.13-16)

I could go on and on with this chapter in Psalms. I encourage you to read it. Read it when you are in that pitiful place of poor me. Read it when the darkness feels too dark or the depths too deep or the sadness too sad. 

Read it when you feel weak. Alone. Angry. Afraid.

Do you know why this passage met me so poignantly this week? Because I had been in a dark place. Sometimes we must feel the dark before we can fully see the light. This is true in science, this is true in self. One makes the other better known. A symbiotic revealing which happens in this relationship. And because I have the light of Jesus within me, I cannot stay in the dark places of my soul, no matter how sad. I just can't. Even when I had selfishly decided to go ahead and let myself be depressed, I could feel the flicker of His light within. 

Oh, dear ones, it is a battle through and through. It is a digging in and most desperate place in the world of spiritual warfare. It is real. It is relentless. It is ruinous. And, I fear, in this God forsaking world, it is running rampant.

You can read all of the self-help books and make all of the most hope-filled new year’s resolutions, but none of it will make much a difference without knowing that Jesus is in the dark and in the depths right with us. The dark is not dark for Him.  Not one bit. 

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for YOU ARE WITH ME.” Psalm 23: 4

The flicker of this reminder was exactly what was needed to dispel the dark. Nothing else was going to work. No amount of bootstrap pulling up or happy face putting on or bright side looking at. 

Only. Only. Only the light flicker and finding of Jesus standing, sitting, weeping, wrestling … and being with me in the dark. 

"I am The Light of the World. 

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, 

but will have the light of life."  ~ John 8:12