Darkness

Have you ever suddenly found yourself in darkness? Perhaps someone played a joke on you and turned the lights off in the room you were in. Or maybe you have stepped outside late at night on a farm where there are no street or security lights. At first you can see almost nothing but darkness. Slowly, however, as your pupils dilate, you begin to see more and more because your eye is allowing in the light that has always been there.

On Saturday night, I learned that a former student of mine died of cancer after a 16-month battle with this dreaded disease. She left behind a husband and a three-year-old son. When I heard the news, suddenly the lights went off and it was dark. I tried to sleep, but my brain wouldn’t settle down. So I got up, went downstairs and began scrolling through the tributes to her and wrote one of my own. I went back through the many messages we exchanged through the months of her battle. 

As I did these things, light began emerging out of the darkness. I began to see the positive things about her life—how upbeat she was through much of her ordeal, but also how honest she was expressing the many challenges she faced physically and emotionally; how she continued to point people to the goodness of God even in the midst of her suffering and a series of bad reports from doctors, and how her faith in the midst of her cancer battle had pointed so many others to the Lord. Even her very last message to me ten days before she died was still hopeful, yet honest. She said she was as sick as she’d ever been, but she still clung to the hope of a miracle that would restore her health. 

That miracle came, but not as we had hoped it would. In her final days, her husband said she told him she still wanted to live, but was ready to leave this world and be with Jesus. In such a dark moment, his light (John 8:12) was always there; it was just harder to see at first. 

As people remember her life in the midst of the current darkness, the presence of light will become more and more obvious. They, as I have, will begin to see all the good that seemed to be hidden in the dark hours following her death. 

I think there is a lesson here for us all when we face trials which envelop us in darkness. The enemy wants us to lose hope, to give up on God, to become embittered. And indeed we will if we do not let our spiritual eyes adjust so that we can see the Lord’s light in the midst of the darkness. My friend was able to do that. She died in peace.

Perhaps it’s a child whose behavior has you discouraged. Resist continuing to focus on his bad behavior, but rather on how the Lord has uniquely created him and the good that is there. Or perhaps it is a bad work environment. Instead of focusing on the darkness of the situation, rather focus on what the Lord might be wanting to teach you in the midst of this trial (James 1:2-4)

Whatever darkness you find enveloping you, it is not as pitch black as you may think. I think this is in essence what the Apostle Paul was saying to the Roman church: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Note that he doesn’t say that ALL things are good, but rather the Lord brings good out of all things that happen to us if we are serving him. Paul, through his many trials, was able to see more than just the darkness. His spiritual pupils were dilated enough to get a proper perspective of what really was there in front of him. 

I have experienced this many times in my own life, but it is easy to forget. My former student helped me once again to remember that there is always more light in the midst of darkness than it may first appear. It’s a lesson for all of us who walk with the Lord.

© Jim Musser 2021 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.