Darkness

Darkness.... not exactly how I usually start a post, but it lingers. Darkness can seem to close in on us at times making it difficult to breathe. Our world is filled with snap shots of happy faces on social media, perfectly poised families smiling for the camera.  We wake with the morning, put on our façade and face the day to answer the usual questions of "how are you?" "How's it going?' We've responded a fake "fine" "I'm good" so many times that maybe we've convinced ourselves we are just that...

Yet the numbness over our hearts continues to grow like a silent cancer. We chide ourselves for letting it get to this, we are supposed to be happy, we are Christians for goodness sakes! What would people think if we opened up about the heavy smog like shadow that keeps pressing in on us day after day? Would they gasp at the condition we've allowed our hearts to become? Would they run away as if to try to escape the darkness themselves? Would they blame us for causing this darkness?

Maybe we know why the darkness is there or when it began. Maybe it began with the death of someone who was our world, maybe the loss of a job that defined us, possibly the anxieties of trying to maintain the "perfect" life, maybe a past that haunts, or an accident that has you living in constant fear.   The worst type of darkness might be the one that we cannot pinpoint where it originated, it just suffocates us for no reason we can comprehend. We ask ourselves why a million times but the answers do not come.

So we hide away, if we keep this darkness our secret maybe we can blend in and not be expelled by the "others who have it all together"! But, here lies the secret. We all carry this darkness. We all are secretly fighting battles in solitude. But we must know as a beloved follower or Christ that we can never win it alone.  Go it alone and you will lose!


It is what we choose to do with this darkness that differentiates. Many have been overcome by it. Many have allowed it to grow deeper and darker until they succumbed to the voice that summoned them to " just end it all". "Wouldn't that be better than hiding this soul anguish?"

Many have allowed the darkness to become who they are, obeying it's commands: "KILL , STEAL, DESTROY!" We've wept for the senseless violence tearing apart so many lives.

As followers of Christ we can be misled to believe we will never be affected by this darkness. Then when we are, we feel inadequate or ashamed. Maybe we didn't really believe ? Maybe we aren't doing something right.

The only difference between a believer is we learn where to take our darkness.  Only ONE can swallow it up! Jesus! The apostle John says this" In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:4-5

Jesus speaks of himself : "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." John 9:5NIV 
Jesus also tasks his followers to be that light for each other. "You are the light of the world." Matthew 5:14NIV

So we gladly expose the darkness to our Savior and our brothers and sisters and watch as it dissolves in His perfect light!