Light in the Darkness

I had been traveling since 3 am that day, and I was tired. The speaker at the evening session of the conference was engaging and interesting, but by the end I was still having trouble keeping my eyes open, the exhaustion of the day and of the past week simply catching up to me. Preaching on Sunday, wrapping up my work at both jobs, packing and navigating the challenges of airports much larger than dear sweet James A. Richardson, and driving 2 hours from Washington D.C. to Harrisonburg VA with the most extroverted shuttle driver in the whole entire world were all catching up to me, and I was ready to hit the wall.

But as I stepped out of the theatre where the session was held into the warm, humid night air in Harrisonburg, I was stopped in my tracks. In every direction, the gentle flickering lights of hundreds of fireflies blinked, rising up from the grass, like tiny fireworks or the lights from dozens of fairies lighting up the night. I thought I'd seen fireflies now and then in Manitoba, mostly in the dark woods on camping trips, but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

It was as if God whispered to me, "I'm here with you in the darkness too."

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It seems like everywhere I turn lately, there's a new challenge waiting to be met. Some of them have been good challenges--like presenting a paper for the first time at an academic conference--challenging, to be sure, but life-giving at the same time. Others have been less obviously good--changes at work that bring lots of uncertainty and anxiety with them. Regardless, I'm tired of challenges, and feeling like I've been stretched to my absolute limit.

A while ago, I was reading the Gospel of John and was arrested by these words of Jesus from John 8:12: "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness..."

Sometimes, I've felt immersed in the darkness lately. So, I've been experimenting with lighting a candle, as a gentle reminder that even when I feel like I'm entering the darkness, I do not walk alone. A reminder that even a small light makes walking through the darkness easier, less frightening.

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While I much prefer the safety and comfort of the daylight, I realized that there is a certain beauty that we cannot know in the broad light of day. The crackling warmth of a campfire on a cool summer's evening. The warm glow of a candle on a dinner table in a softly lit room. Hundreds of fireflies putting on a free show.

And so, my prayer is that when I find myself in the darkness, I'll have eyes open to see the gentle, compassionate, grace-filled ways that God meets me in this place, that I might never experience if I had never made acquaintance with the darkness. I want to be awakened to the unique beauty that's to be found here, and to the compassion of the God who meets me here.

Maybe it's not so much that we'll never walk in darkness, but that the darkness itself is shattered by the light of the One we find, who has gone ahead and is already waiting for us there.