Uplift Life

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

I’m not going to pretend the things going on in our country right now are not happening.
So the uplift today is going to be a little different.
If you are struggling today …
if you are mourning the loss of someone you love,
or if you are dealing with an illness
or struggling through any other difficulty in your life –
I understand that this uplift may not be exactly what you need… and for that, I’m sorry.
If that is you today, I pray that you can still find the hope contained in this week’s uplift.

Regardless of your political position, if you are a follower of God there can be no mistaking the call in scripture to take care of the other.
Here are just a few examples:

Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:17

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Psalm 82:3

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.
Matthew 25: 35

It’s kind of hard to ignore.
Even harder to ignore when in the Greek and Hebrew, the word translated as “stranger” is equivalent to “foreigner.”
It’s easy, in fact, easiest, to take care of ourselves and not worry about anyone else.
Especially when we’re scared or things feel overwhelming.
It becomes easier still to bury our collective heads in the sand and say there is nothing we can do when we are face-to-face with actions opposing the very heart of who we are.
What are we supposed to do?
How are we to react?
Today’s uplift text from Micah 6:8 reminds us clearly and without doubt we are to:
Do justice
Love kindness
Walk humbly.
These are the marks of a Christian.
This is what it looks like to follow God.
Even in dark times.
Even when we’re scared.
Even when the hits keep coming.  

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.

Doing justice means that those of us who have a voice, use it not on behalf of ourselves, but others. On behalf of those without a voice, and those without power.
Ever wonder why scripture uses widows and orphans as the ones we are called to care for?
They are the ones without power in Biblical times.
They are the ones without a voice.
Do justice.
Don’t just talk about it, don’t just post about it.
Do it.

Love kindness.
Glennon Doyle Melton once said that “If you’re not kind on the internet, you’re not kind.”
This is true in more places than just the internet.
We have to love kindness.
What does that mean?
It means we try to be kind first.
It means we always first ask ourselves before speaking, before posting, before acting: is this kind? Even when we disagree.
Maybe especially when we disagree.
Kindness is key.   

Walk humbly.
This one is the hardest.
Because to go about your daily life humbly is not easy.
Especially when we think we’re right.
Being humble is assigning ourselves lower importance.
And we don’t like to do that.  We like to be #1. On top.
Connected to those with power.
But that is not what it means to be humble.
We walk through each day making sure we are helping people go in front of us.
So we are called, by God, to go out into the world to find those without a voice and act on their behalf with kindness, always putting their needs above our own.
Oh. You know. Just that little thing.
It’s HARD.
But we can do it Uplifters.
I know we can.

Last Sunday at my church we talked about the disciples and how Jesus asked them to do exactly what they already knew how to do but just do it in a new way.
The same is true when God calls us to action.
You are good at things. You have gifts.
You have skills.
You have knowledge.
How can you use your voice to speak up and be kind for the benefit of someone else?
Let’s do it.
Today.
This isn’t about being democrat or republican, liberal or conservative.
This is a call of God on our lives, and how we respond matters.
Not to us, but to those who are waiting for our just, kind, humble response.
We can do this uplifters.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us
Romans 5:5

There are days when hope is hard.
Not just a little hard, but really, really, hard.
Today is one of those days for me.
So I need this verse.
I need some hope.
Remember, from previous uplifts, that hope means “the expectation of good.”
That we expect good things to come.
I don’t know about you, but I need some of that today.
And I need the reminder that hope isn’t the same thing as being ok,
or being happy
or having our act together.
Hope isn’t even believing things will be better tomorrow,
or the next day,
or even the next.
Hope is believing that whatever is going on,
It can be redeemed.
It will be made new.
It will get better.
This is frustrating for us fixers.
When we want to make things better for those around us.
It’s frustrating for those of us who are struggling, because we WANT to believe that things will get better but it just doesn’t FEEL like they ever will.
But this is when hope is the most important.
The most needed.
You know how sometimes, when you are in the dark, your eyes find the tiniest amount of light there and use it to see?
That’s hope.
Hope is the tiniest spark, the smallest glimmer of light in the darkness.
It’s there.
I promise it’s there.
And it can light up the darkest dark,
the saddest sad,
the scariest fear,
the worst life has to offer…
Hope is there.
The Apostle Paul says that hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts… it’s already there.
It has already been given to us.
Love wins.
Love doesn’t always win the day.
It doesn’t always win the week,
But it always wins in the end.
That is what we hope in and for.
And hope does not let us down.  

There’s a poem I love, the first one I ever learned from memory, by Emily Dickinson, called “Hope is the thing with feathers” that fits today perfectly.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Hope doesn’t ask a thing of us.
It’s just there.
Singing without stopping.
Keeping us warm.
Reminding us that love will win.
We’re going to be ok you guys.
We’ve got this.

Oh send out your light and your truth, let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill, and to your dwelling.
Psalm 43:3

We had a music therapist come teach us at our recent Cancer Support Group and oh man it was so cool.

Music is amazing.
It literally heals us.  Did you know that?
Music can calm you down, slow your respiratory and heart rate, lower stress, make you feel understood, connect you to yourself and each other… it’s just amazing.
I sang in a choir in college that held hands while we performed, and a study on this kind of singing showed that our heart rates would beat in time to the music and to each other.
Isn’t that incredible?
Music is IN us.  It’s innate.

So this week, I have a song for us as the uplift.
It’s called “My Lighthouse” by Rend Collective, and it’s a song that I listen to whenever I’m struggling or having a bad day.  Somehow it always makes me feel better.
It acknowledges that life gets crappy.  
Really crappy sometimes.
And yet, there’s a light, bringing us safely to shore.

The uplift verse today is what they based this song on – about a light that brings you safely to shore when the seas get rocky and you aren’t sure you can weather the storm.
Lighthouses are built on rocks, so they last, and so they are seen.
And that is God for us.
Standing strong.
Shining a light into the darkest of nights,
the foggiest of days,
the roughest storms.
Bringing us safely to shore, on that solid ground again.
Look at the lyrics below, (oh they are just SO GOOD)
See the many, many, promises contained in them,
and then listen.

In my wrestling and in my doubts
In my failures You won’t walk out
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea

In the silence, You won’t let go
In the questions, Your truth will hold
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea

My Lighthouse, my lighthouse
Shining in the darkness, I will follow You
My Lighthouse, my lighthouse
I will trust the promise,
You will carry me safe to shore

I won’t fear what tomorrow brings
With each morning I’ll rise and sing
My God’s love will lead me through

When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 2:10-11

Today is Epiphany.
It’s the day that the wise men come and celebrate the baby Jesus.

These guys had been following this star for awhile.
And when it stopped, the text says “they were overwhelmed with joy.”

Why?
What was the cause?
Is it because the anticipation was so great and when they were finally where they had been going they just couldn’t handle it anymore and got overwhelmed?
Or is it because they were so happy to have the journey done?

I honestly don’t have the answer for this.
But I think it’s some kind of combination of both.
I don’t think they knew what to expect, only that it was going to be big.
And after traveling for so long, they were SO CLOSE…
Have you ever been so tired of traveling you just cried when you finally got to where you were going?
It’s important to recognize that they haven’t even seen Jesus yet,
but already they are overwhelmed with joy.

The Greek here translated literally is “they rejoiced with an exceedingly great amount of joy”
I love this.
Like a joy explosion.
In the midst of their exhaustion and confusion and yes, even fear (they knew Herod was trying to use them to kill this new savior, after all) they responded with joy that just couldn’t be contained.

They know that this Jesus person is going to change everything and even though they don’t quite understand it or know what it means or even fully experience it, they rejoice.

Because today – on Epiphany, Christ is revealed.
(that’s actually what the word means you know)
This person that we’ve been waiting for, the one we keep hearing about – is here.
And even though we don’t fully understand it all,
and don’t always know what it means,
when we don’t know what is coming next,
we still know it’s a big deal.
Jesus has come – and we rejoice.

I think joy is a tricky thing.
We often confuse it with happiness.
But joy isn’t the same at all.
Joy stays.
Joy is there even when things don’t look good.
When you’re tired and scared and unsure.
Joy can even be there when you’re unhappy.
Because Jesus coming into this broken world and into all the things that make it dark and scary, like loss and heartbreak and death and sickness…  Jesus coming into THIS world means those things don’t win.
They will never win.

You guys.
Jesus has come.
For you.
FOR YOU.
It’s time to let that sink in and have your own epiphany.
Let it overwhelm you with joy.

Joy explosions. Everywhere.

*This was posted on Dec 28, before 2017 began…*

“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth – do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert”

Isaiah 43:18-19

If you’re anything like me, you are looking forward to 2016 being in the rearview mirror.

Only two more days and we can start over.
Yet it’s not always that easy to just up and leave the previous year behind.
As much as I want to just say “peace out 2016” and leave it in the past forever, it’s only one day different.
It’s not like anything magical happens between Dec 31 and Jan 1.
And it’s not like 2017 comes along and erases 2016.  
It’s still there.  All the things that happened don’t just go away.
Yet in two days, we celebrate a new year, and a new beginning.

 These two verses from Isaiah seem to be perfect for ending the old and beginning the new.
“do not remember the former things” God reminds us.
There are a few verses in Luke’s gospel where Jesus tells his followers to just up and follow, to not even go back to their homes and say goodbye or tie up any loose ends.
That seems kind of harsh right?
But Jesus reminds is that there is no looking back.
What’s done is done. What’s in the past is in the past.
And all things, even the worst moments of 2016, the loved ones we’ve lost, the diagnoses we’ve heard, the treatments we’ve endured, they are all a part of the past.

I know. Easier said than done.

But there’s a reason why we’re asked to stop looking at the stuff that has already gone by.  
God says to us:  “I am about to do a new thing”
Some translations even have this verse starting with “look.”
LOOK – I am making new stuff happen. Right now.
You can’t see the new thing in front of you if you are looking behind you.

2016 is almost gone. (praise Jesus)
It’s almost in the rearview..
And whether it was the best year or worst year ever, spending time looking back at it doesn’t do a whole lot of good.

So we look forward.
2017 is here.
It’s brand new.
And God is in it – God is always in it.
Making rivers in the desert and paths in wild places.
Working for us, staying with us, no matter what this new year brings.

Happy New Year Uplifters –
Glad we’re in it together!

“And Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
Luke 2: 7

Christmas is in two days.
One if you celebrate on Christmas Eve.
And in the midst of meals and gifts and traditions and gatherings,
it can be really, really easy to lose sight of what this actually means.
Honestly, the culture wars over red cups or saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas don’t help this either. None of those things matter.
Really. They don’t.
But I think for a lot of us, family and friends and traditions ARE important.
Part of what makes Christmas so great is all of those things.
And we shouldn’t feel guilty for loving them.
Yet all those things have a tendency to drown out the reason we gather in the first place.

I KNOW.  I just basically said to remember the reason for the season and I’m so sorry.
But as cheesy as that line is and as much as I had hoped it would never cross my lips – it’s kind of true.
Jesus was born in a manger because there was no room in the inn, and we have continued to crowd him out of our busy holiday schedules ever since.
It’s true. One year, my husband and I had 6 Christmases in 7 days over a span of roughly 600 miles.
And you know what? It was hard. It was stressful. And it was exhausting.
Sure, there was joy in there too.  We saw our families, shared meals and memories, but we didn’t get to take time to sit and be.
Be in awe of what Christmas means.
We didn’t take time to come to the manger and be present in the quiet beauty and simplicity of what happens there on that holy night.

That little baby, that tiny person, is the love of God made human.
God’s love. Right there.
That’s what we forget sometimes.
Yes we remember it’s about Jesus being born, but it’s about God’s love becoming a person.
It’s stunning and so beautiful and I can’t believe sometimes we miss it.

Sometimes music says things better than I can –
(ok most of the time)
and there’s a gorgeous choral piece by Edwin Fissinger called “Love Came Down at Christmas” that I listen to when I feel myself losing sight of this love.  (Listen here)

They sing:
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine;

Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

Love was born at Christmas.
Oh that’s just such a lovely image.

So uplifters, this is my wish for you this Christmas – that you take time.
That you find a church to attend, wherever you are, even if you haven’t been to one in awhile, and take time to come and sit and be in the presence of Emmanuel.

God with us.

This holy day is about God making the choice to come and be one of us, to be with us in this broken and messed up world.
And we can’t forget it.
Because it is this truth that gets us through the next year.

God with us.

We’ve been reflecting on darkness the last few weeks here in our weekly uplifts, and now, finally, we celebrate the light breaking in.
So go to church. Take time.
Pick up a candle and be a witness to Christ’s coming into the world again.

God made the two great lights
– the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night – and the stars.
Genesis 1:16

The snow is beginning to fall in MN, and so we begin our final week reflecting on darkness.
So what better place to end than where it all began – Genesis 1: 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Here’s the thing about Genesis that we miss.
In Genesis 1:4 it says that darkness covered the land – so God made light.
You guys.
When God created the world, darkness was there already.
I think this is really important.
Because it reminds me that God made LIGHT, not darkness.
God knew that life couldn’t be sustained in only darkness.
But then, God goes further.
In verse 16, it says that God made different KINDS of light.
One to rule the day.
And one to rule the night.
They are different.
Intentionally different.
Each light has a place in the way of creation.
We need both.

And both are a part of the world God created for us.
We need the sun.
It gives us life and warmth and joy.

Our planet would not be able to survive without the sun.
And despite it being called the “lesser” light. We need the moon too.
It is lesser in terms of brightness, sure, but not in importance.
The moon lights the dark, it moves the waters, and it helps regulate all sorts of life-sustaining characteristics of our planet.
(really, the moon is so cool – read this article about what life would be like without a moon)
Also the moon is beautiful.
Really beautiful.

Besides being beautiful and important, the moon does the incredible task of giving light in the darkness.
It’s different than the sun.
The sun’s light kind of obliterates any other light.
We can’t see the stars in the daytime, and rarely can we see the moon either.
We can’t even really look at the sun.
And yet at night, in the dark, that is when the lesser light comes out.
Even though it doesn’t get rid of the darkness, it does change it.

A few weeks ago, I talked in the uplift about a book the Cancer Support Group here at my church read together (Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor).  Another thing she wrote about was this idea of solar spirituality.  That somehow we’ve decided that faith means things are always happy and shiny and bright.
Until they aren’t.

And if they aren’t so happy and sunny, then we must be doing something wrong.
So we just need to pray harder.
Do more.
Believe differently.
We say things like “come into the light”
– as if we just tried a little bit harder, we could leave the darkness behind.
Have you ever felt this way?
Like you were stuck in a world of solar spirituality?
Where darkness is not ok, not sought out, and hidden, ignored, or explained away?
Yeah. Solar spirituality seems like a good thing, until your life gets dark.
Then it doesn’t have a lot to say.
I don’t know about you, but I think solar spirituality is total crap.

CRAP.

Yes I said crap in a devotional.
And I mean it.
Because darkness, hard things, bad days, they are not your fault.
Do I need to say it again?
When your life isn’t going the way you thought it would go,
It’s not your fault.
Sometimes life is just … dark.
And sometimes you can’t will or hope or believe your way out of darkness.

In her book, Taylor says that she thinks instead of solar spirituality, she has “been given the gift of lunar spirituality, in which the divine light available to me waxes and wanes with the season.  When I go out on the porch at night, the moon never looks the same way twice.  Some nights it is as round and bright as a headlight; other nights it is thinner than the sickle hanging in my garage.  Some nights it is high in the sky, and other night low over the mountains. Some nights it is altogether gone, leaving a vast web of stars that are brighter in its absence.”  

YES.

Did your whole being just sort of yell out YES when you read this?

ME TOO.

I think lunar spirituality is just pure truth and when we finally read/hear/see real truth our whole being reacts to it. If you’ve been stuck in solar spirituality wondering why you feel like an outside there, I think it’s because faith is more lunar.

We’ve been taking time this month to sit in the darkness, to recognize the beauty contained in it, to see and feel and notice God’s presence in it.
And yet, we also need to acknowledge that darkness and light are a part of a cycle we go in and out of rather than a place we are stuck in.
A cycle created by God.
Cycles, by definition, are movement.
This is why lunar spirituality is so beautiful to think about.
When it’s darkest, that’s the beginning of the next cycle.
There is light about to come.
And though it may just be a sliver, its coming.

So if you’re in a dark place right now, know it’s temporary.
If things are good for you, know that even if they dim,
it doesn’t change the presence of God with you.
This is the way life really feels isn’t it?
Dark and light.
Back and forth, sometimes more dark than others,
Sometimes almost too bright.
And yet the cycle continues.
So wherever you are right now,
if it’s light or dark or even some kind of strange middle-light kinda-dark,
It’s all a kind of beautiful.
And God is in it all.  

It is you who lights my lamp
The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness
Psalm 18:28

I decided to keep rolling with this darkness theme we’ve got going,
because there is still so much to say about it.
It’s not like darkness just goes away just because we want it to.
We still get news we didn’t want.
We still lose people we love.
We still experience hate and anger and fear.
Every day.
Darkness can’t be wished or worked away.
Which is the worst.
Because some of us (ok, a lot of us) are problem-solving people.

We get stuff DONE.

And when there’s something dark in our lives or the lives of our loved ones,
we just want to make it better.
We want it to go away.
And so we try our hardest to fight the darkness on our own.
We fight it with man-made light,
with false platitudes
with simple answers to complicated heartbreak
by covering our pain with “fine”
and by “should-ing” all over the place.
I know.
I’ve been there.
I like being responsible for myself.
And I want to be able to make my darkness less dark, all on my own.
How hard can it be?
So I try.
We all try.
And then, at some point, we realize that’s not how it works. And often, it is in these places of deepest darkness and exhaustion we turn back to God. Because it’s God that can light the lamp to lighten the dark.  

And here’s the thing –
God lights the darkness in a way that nothing else can.
God lights the lamp that stays.
I love this verse from Psalm 18:
It is you who lights my lamp,
the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.

It may have to get printed and placed somewhere in my office because it’s just so beautiful.
And for me, what makes it so lovely are the two words translated as “lights”.
They aren’t the same word in the Hebrew scriptures, even though they mean almost the same thing when translated.
The first one means to kindle, light up.
“It is you who kindles my lamp”
The second one means to cause to shine, or (and this is my favorite) to glitter/sparkle.
“The Lord, my God, makes the darkness shine”
Notice how it doesn’t say “God takes away my darkness”
Nope.
Also, this verse is so often mistranslated as “God makes the darkness light”
That’s not quite right either.
God makes the darkness shine.

Now shiney darkness might seem like an oxymoron, but stay with me for a sec.
Think about moments when darkness is considered beautiful.
How candlelight and starlight and fireflies can make darkness shine.
It’s not light exactly, but it’s not quite so dark either.
This is what God does in darkness. When we’re in it, it can seem so scary and isolating and lonely.
But as the last two weeks of uplift have reminded us, God is in that darkness with us,
and there are things in the darkness that we simply cannot see in the light.
So no matter how dark it gets, remember that you aren’t alone.
That God is with you in whatever dark place you find yourself.
And that there is light to be found in that dark place of yours too.
God is there, lighting lamps and making the darkness glitter.

I will give you the treasures of darkness
  and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
Isaiah 45:3

I know.

I talked about darkness LAST week.
But it’s still dark.
Even darker actually.
Last week, sunset was at 4:35.  This week, it’s 4:33.
I KNOW.
It’s gross.

But after we learn not to be afraid of the dark,
After we hear and know God is still with us in even the darkest darkness,
That doesn’t make the darkness go away.
It still happens.
Every day.
Sometimes the darkness is within us.
And no amount of sunlight in the sky makes it seem less…well… dark.

When darkness seems extra present,
figuratively or literally, our tendency is to turn on lights
or…
hide.

Even if we get that darkness isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s still not like we suddenly start welcoming it with open arms.
But should we?
I think there are things to discover in the dark that we cannot find in the light.

I love this verse from Isaiah.
I feel like God is whispering it to me each time I read it.

Try it:  “I will give you the treasures of darkness, the riches hidden in secret places”

Nice huh?
There is a secret to the darkness.
Things that no one gets to see or hear or feel in the light.

Chet Raymo, in his book from “The Soul of the Night” said:
“There is a tendency for us to flee from the wild silence and the wild dark, to pack up our gods and bunker down behind city walls, to turn the gods into idols, to kowtow before them and approach their precincts only in the official robes of office.  And when we are in the temples, then who will hear the voice crying in the wilderness?  Who will hear the reed shaken by the wind?”

If we are always running away from the dark stuff, are we also running away from God?
I mean, God is there, in the darkness too – remember?
And not only that, but what if there are parts of God we can’t see in the light?
What if, like the sky, darkness just makes it look different, but not less than?
AND what if, some of those dark places are how we get a complete picture of who God is?

Sheesh.
When you think about it like this, it kind of makes you want to turn off all the lights and sit in the darkness just to hear the whisper of God found there.
And you know what that whisper is going to say?  

Your name.

The whisper of God that can only be heard in the darkest places says your name.
Calls you a child of God.
Claims you as her own.
There are secret riches in the dark.
So let’s not be afraid.
God is calling.

Listen.

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as day, for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:12

The days keep getting darker.
Not figuratively, I mean they are literally getting darker.
Sunset was at 4:36 today.
Tomorrow it’ll be 4:35.

What. The. Heck.

As a sun-seeker, winter can be difficult.
It feels so dark.
And the dark isn’t always fun.
In fact, the dark can be downright scary.
I remember as a kid, the basement lights had to be turned off at the BOTTOM of the stairs so I’d turn them off and then run up the dark stairs as fast as my little legs could possibly take me.
Heaven forbid the furnace would choose that moment to cycle on.
It was terrifying.
And as I lived in the country, night was NIGHT.
There wasn’t all this ambient city light to ease us into it.
When the sun went down, it was dark.
Now as an adult, I’m not afraid of the dark anymore, and in fact, I’m the one going around my house constantly turning off lights that my own daughter has left on because she’s afraid of the dark.
She’s gotten really good at reaching into a room to hit the light-switch before actually having to go in there.
And with each day needing more and more light because of less and less daylight, I’ve been wondering – what is it about the dark that we are so afraid of?

The Cancer Support Group here at Prince of Peace read a lovely book by Barbara Brown Taylor last month, called “Learning to Walk in the Dark.”
In it, Taylor wonders if maybe we’ve been doing it all wrong.  
What if, instead of being afraid of the dark, we instead learn to be in it?

“Even when light fades and darkness falls -as it does every single day, in every single life – God does not turn the world over to some other deity. Even when you cannot see where you are going and no one answers your call, this is not sufficient proof that you are alone. …  but whether you decide to trust the witness of those who have gone before you, or you decide to do whatever it takes to become a witness yourself, here is the testimony of faith: darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bring as the day.”

God is with us in the dark.
In the darkest dark.
All of it.
Because darkness to God is not dark at all.
Darkness becomes less scary, less dark, when we start to realize God is in it with us.
Even when we can’t see our hand in front of our face, God is there.
So no need to run around turning on all the lights.

Sit in the dark.
Feel God there with you.
Because he is.