It's been a long time since I've gotten excited about God.
Or anything for that matter.
I have been living in what I have called "The Year of the Great Darkness"...a year when so much has been stripped away...taken away...denied.
I have been dancing around God...eyeing Him...watching Him...waiting for Heaven knows what.
Who was this God I had bet my life on? And where was He during the days, no months, of anguish and tears and depression?
My feeble cry, my simple prayer, became, "Please, please don't forget the work of Your hands." That was it.
Some call this The Dark Night of the Soul and I have come to believe that's a fitting name for it, for the path ahead is unclear...you've never traveled it before so you don't know how to get Home.
And you begin to wonder...
"Suppose the darkness never lifts?"
"Suppose you are left to wander in it forever?"
"Suppose this is the new normal and you're not sure you want to live anymore if it is?"
The verse about people in darkness seeing a great light...Isaiah 9:2...has always been one of my favorite Christmas verses. It sounded so good. So right. So Christmassy. But I never understood the horror of it until now.
"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who lived in a land of deep shadows- light! Sunbursts of light!"
It's one thing to maneuver around your home in a power outage...it's another thing entirely to walk in a foreign place where you are completely unfamiliar with your surroundings.
It's frightening. I feel those people's pain.
Now I know you're thinking, "But wait! That verse doesn't end with darkness...there's light, too!"
Yes, yes there is.
But those people walking in darkness didn't flip on the light switch. God did.
And that's what's been one of the hardest things for me to understand...this God, my Heavenly Father, could switch on the light in a heartbeat. But He hasn't. Why?
Instead, He's allowed me to wander in the dark night...in the land of deep shadows. Why?
