A Light in the Darkness

“The people who walk in darkness
    will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,

    a light will shine.
³ You will enlarge the nation of Israel,
    and its people will rejoice.
They will rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest
    and like warriors dividing the plunder.
⁴ For you will break the yoke of their slavery
    and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.
You will break the oppressor’s rod,
    just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian.
⁵ The boots of the warrior
    and the uniforms bloodstained by war
will all be burned.
    They will be fuel for the fire.

⁶ For a child is born to us,
    a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
    And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor,^[c] Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ His government and its peace
    will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
    for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
    will make this happen!

Isaiah 9:2-7, NLT

            This summer my family and I took a trip to Mammoth Cave. Over the years, we’ve visited several times and we always try and take a different tour of the caves. This year, our tour had us stop deep beneath the ground and take a seat on a bench while our guide gave a brief talk about the cave we were in. As part of this talk, he asked us to silence all electronic devices, making sure they couldn’t light up, to not make any noise, and to keep any children with light up shoes from moving their feet. He warned us that he would be turning off the light, but he would be right by the switch and would turn it back on in a few moments.

            He flipped the switch, and suddenly, we were surrounded in complete darkness. Not the kind where your eyes finally adjust to the tiniest amount of light in your bedroom at night and you can make out shapes, no, in this cave, there was no sound and no matter how many times you blinked, the world was completely black.

            It was unnerving to be in such a place. It was as if that darkness had a tangible weight, like a heavy blanket pressing down on me. My eyes kept blinking as my ears actively searched for any scrap of sound. Every part of me was struggling to try and find some tiny bit of visibility that it could latch onto, anything to help me escape this deep, sinister void.

            As I celebrate the Christmas season, I like to contemplate where the world was back when that tiny baby was born in a manger. About 400 years had passed since the last prophet of the Old Testament. The temple of Jerusalem has been rebuilt, but it had never reached the glory and splendor of its original days. Rome was the controlling political power, and even the Jewish people were divided into groups like the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In the opening verses of this passage, scripture reads, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.” (v.2) Maybe, just like I felt that day sitting in that cave, Israel felt like they were sitting in a dark and dreary world that was suffocating them. Here were the promised children of God bruised and weary, but no matter how hard they looked, no matter how much their souls longed to see it, their hope still had not come. Not until the day, the very moment when Christ was born.

God had foretold of a coming Savior; he would be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (v.6) Oh, how the people must have longed for His arrival! Their history was colored with being captured and exiled, placed under one ruler after another, surrounded by idol worship in foreign lands. How many mouths in prayer were whispering, “Please Lord, send the promised one”?

Maybe today, in a modern world where we are governed by worldly rulers and where we may feel like the Church is divided by differing opinions, maybe we feel like we too are living in a land of deep darkness. At times, it feels like all the chaos of this world, all the despair and anger and brokenness can overwhelm me, and I too cry out, “When will this struggle cease? When will we find peace?”

I was talking with my daughter just the other day about her Sunday School lesson. She was explaining their bible story was about a prophet, and how what he said would happen came true. We talked about how, when God tells His people He will do something, we can trust that it will come to pass. So, maybe this Christmas I can remember that God was faithful to send a “child born to us, a son is given to us.”(v.6) Many years have passed since that night in Bethlehem, but God is still faithful to keep His promises. As weary as I may get from the troubles of this life, I know that this is indeed temporary and that God is still in control. May Christmas be a time when my faith grows stronger, and I rest in the trust that the remaining verses in this Isaiah passage will, in time, come to be as well:

“His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!” (v.7)

My Resting Place

I can still remember the time in my life when I was given the verse Psalm 63:7,

"Because You are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings."

It was 2005, and for Mother's Day that year my husband and children had given me a new bible study as a present. The verse had been tucked away in the lines of one of the book's chapters and I had underlined it in pretty purple ink. I didn't realize then how much that verse would become a declaration that I would make time and time                                                                            again in my life.

On May 22, 2005, that very same month, I was getting ready to lay down with my youngest child for a nap. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, the day after my wedding anniversary, and I answered the ringing phone in my bedroom probably wondering who could be calling on us on a Sunday. It was my dad's next door neighbor letting me know that my dad had collapsed, his heart had stopped beating, and that an ambulance had come to take him to the hospital.

My husband and I packed our three children into the van, and began the drive to Lexington to leave them with a friend so we could travel on to the Winchester hospital where they had taken my father. My husband actually let me, the recipient of shocking news, drive. I think I probably needed the distraction of driving the vehicle, since we were an hour and a half away from our destination. I can remember praying, God, however this ends, whatever may happen, even if I can't understand the why, help me to accept that Your ways are not mine. I'm fairly certain my heart and head knew the outcome of the day long before I pulled into that hospital parking lot. My daddy was gone.

As is the case with the death of a loved one, even before the grief can take hold, you are bombarded with funeral home visits, phone calls to make, arrangements to be made. Your loss has barely had 24 hours to sink in, and you're trying to figure out who needs to be a pallbearer and what the newspaper obituary should read. I've been through the process now several times, and it never changes.

I can't remember where my children were at the time, but I was trying to get everyone's "funeral attire" together and I had just finished a trip to Wal-Mart. I walked into my empty house, and sank onto my kitchen floor, finally getting a chance to shed the tears that I'd be putting off till I had a moment alone. At the age of 29, I had three children, one that was not even four months old, no siblings and no parents. I felt so alone as I cried that gut-wrenching ugly cry where you're just struggling to take in air and your insides seem to be locking down, fighting the very physical pain that mourning such loss can bring. But even as the tears flowed, I could remember that verse that I had underlined in whimsical color just days before, and so I prayed, God, You are going to have to get me through this, You are going to have to help me find my joy again, You are going to have to give me back my song.

For me, music is life expressed in various notes and rhythms. I confess, most moments, even if there isn't a song playing in the air, I have a mental soundtrack running in my head. My collection of songs on my phone range from classical to country to rap to contemporary christian to jazz. I can't hole myself up in just one genre because the variety of life's situations demand different songs. I love to sing and I love to lift my voice in praise and worship. I sing when I drive, when I cook, when I get ready in the morning, when I'm folding laundry. It's not unusual to catch me at a stop light, hands raised, singing and dancing and paying no attention to the other cars around me. If there were ever a way I express my love and adoration to my God and my Savior, it is through song. So, what would happen if I couldn't do that any longer?

Psalm 63:7 makes me think of myself like a little chick. I'm busy running around, doing my thing, exploring the world around me. But, when the storm comes, when the darkness falls, when something has me scared, I go running right back to the security of my daddy's wings and I tuck myself underneath. They're big enough to surround me, to hold me close, to grant me peace and warmth until I feel like I can venture back out into the world. And yes, they provide me the shelter I need as I heal and find a way to sing for joy again.

I've lost loved ones, I've faced job losses and illnesses and parenting challenges and relationship breakdowns,  and I continue to sing in the safety of His wings. Some days my song is loud and clear, and some days my song is nothing more than me listening to someone else vocalize what my heart is barely whispering inside me. But, through all my days He continues to be my Comfort and my Helper, the joy in my song. Amen.