Yesterday my mind was overcome with defeat when just the day before I felt unstoppable. I swear, my emotions are like the Spring time weather of my home town. You really never know what you are gonna get and when its gonna turn from sunshine into storm clouds. With this being the forecast of emotions in my life, I notice that I tend to only be transparent with others during the sunshine days; only after I've made it through the darkness. That it's only then that I feel I can be inspiring, that it's only then my pains have purpose. I am working on finding the confidence or whatever it is that I lack in order to express just how dark it gets behind this skin, behind these tumors, behind all the lies the enemy throws my way, especially when I believe them and especially while I am currently within that darkness.
I admit that today I've shaken off some dark and though I'm not fully in the light, I am headed towards it. Proving again that the light is my safe zone for authenticity. I know how to look at and express my heart when I'm in the light. I even know how to reach back into the dark and speak of its weight. But in the darkness, it is far too dark to feel safe in the wandering. To feel secure as I seek out the pains of my heart and sort through them to decipher what it is that shackles and drowns me. It feels unsafe to let my feelings be all on the table to be seen and heard by others, let alone my own self. So I hide by distractions and wait it out till somehow light comes again. I know that I can get by with living my dark hours this way. But I also know that if I wrestle in the darkness with all that makes it dark, no matter how dark and heavy it becomes, that the days I'm in the light will ONLY be brighter. And today as my soul is in the state of dawn breaking, half way still in the dark, half way taking in the light...I know deep inside of me that no matter what darkness lays over me, that the only thing that is within me is this light. This is what I was made of. This is what I was made for. This is God, it is the Holy Spirit within me.
So maybe next time as darkness surrounds me just like these blankets do now, I will take my light and not fear to look at and wrestle the dark. Maybe I will find healing as I navigate authenticity while in my darkness. Maybe I will know that darkness does not prove my defeat, but only my humanity. And in that humanity I would reach for the connection we all long for. That however intimidating the darkness is, that it is only that...'intimidating', and that I am made to have victory over it. Just like any sealed area of space, darkness is only allowed until light is let in, for darkness is always in submission to light. I believe that darkness is only like being under the blankets at the brightest time of day, dark and confining for those that lay beneath but just on the other side is the newness of day and the freedom we were saved for.
