Faith in the Dark

Once again, in quiet I sit.

I rise early, to think and write, to possibly pray. But I feel something different this time. (These are different days, indeed.)

I start with the usual feeling of gratitude and yet… something shifts. I can’t just check the boxes, business as usual.

The actual vulnerability of my children, of myself, of any of us, grips my chest. I feel scared in this moment, something I maybe don’t allow myself to feel most of the time.

There, in the darkness and quiet of the morning, I feel the danger of all that could be. There, in the dark, I finally feel afraid.

It grips my chest. And I must pray. (What else can I do?? I already wrote my affirmations, have already expressed my gratitude. But it is not enough. No, it is indeed not. Not now.)

The prayer is a psalm that comes to mind. It is one that I have trouble saying at first. The words are heavy on my tongue and make me fearful. I don’t want to say them out loud. I don’t want to need them.

But, my family. Our lives. My sweet children sleeping upstairs, and my strong husband, too. All of our futures unknown, our safety unsure.

I’m brought back to the words. What other choice do I have? When you can’t ignore your reality any more, you must face it. Even if it’s just the reality of what’s in your heart. I must pray them.

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

I don’t want to walk through that valley. I don’t want to say that word. I don’t want to think of it or feel it or even talk about it. I don’t even want to pray it. Saying the words would make it feel too real or possible.

I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT.

But I feel lost in the darkness, literally.

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. FOR YOU ARE WITH ME. YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF THEY COMFORT ME.”

I cry at the thought of that. A big strong shepherd, there beside me. With a rod and a staff.

I am not alone.

‘Good shepherd, kind and strong, beat away the wolves that are around us. Please draw me closer to safety with your staff, though I may try to wander away. Help us and please keep us safe.” I cry and my words are simple. Their meaning, however, is not.

None of this is easy. These things never are.

Faith in the dark is hard fought. Faith anytime is, I remember.

I feel like I have to walk into the other room to grab my little leather bound bible. One I haven’t cracked open in a long time.

(Judge me if you must, one way or another. I don’t open it often. Faith still beats in my heart and it won’t let me go, even if I wrestle. Even though it looks different than it used to or than I thought it should. God is bigger than my preconceived notions. Perhaps yours, too.)

I like to say I’m a bit of a recovering bible school graduate. Who married a Catholic and has all but officially become one herself , since I began attending mass almost two decades ago. (I’m a slow adaptor.) Who never stopped believing, but whose ideas and perspective have changed a lot over time.

I grab the bible from the other room and head back to where I was sitting. Psalm 139 is all I can think. I know it’s the message of God knitting us together, forming us in the womb. But that’s not the part that calls me. I’m not sure what is. But I pick it up anyway.

Lord you have searched me and know me.  You know my sitting down and my uprising, you know my thoughts from afar.  There is not a word on my tongue but you know it altogether.   You are behind me and before.  You have laid your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.  It is high.  I cannot attain it.   Where shall I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven YOU ARE THERE.  If I make my bed in hell, behold, YOU ARE THERE.   If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall your hand lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.   If I say surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.  Yes, the darkness hides not from thee.   The night shines as day.   The darkness after light are alike to thee.  ❤️ 

Psalm 139

God knew I would stumble on the words “the valley of the shadow of death.” I realize now it doesn’t even necessarily mean death. It means the shadow of it, the darkness, the fear. But, “I will fear no evil. Because you are with me.”

He knew it all. My hesitance. My fear. The darkness around me, the darkness of my faith, the wrestle in the dark.

Not to make light of it, but it’s kind of like those blue scissors that my son asked for during craft time. I got up and looked all over the house for them. Upstairs, downstairs, everywhere. I came back to the room where we were set up, to report that I couldn’t find them. Then I looked back where I started and I burst out laughing. They were right there beside me, all along.

”You are behind me and before me. You have laid your hand upon me.”

How I think of faith has changed a lot over time. This morning in the dark, even, it became deeper.

We can’t loose it as easily as you might fear. God doesn’t let us go that easily.

Much like a wife who may have forgotten how to love her husband. She doesn’t merely cease to be married, even if she ceased to hold up her end of the bargain. That’s not how covenant works.

Real love keeps loving, even when it’s not being reciprocated. Real love is a choice. And a long time ago, God chose you.

He did, in fact, knit you together in the womb.

He is, in fact, beside you in the mountaintop, and in the depths.

He already knows the prayers that are so hard to whisper in dark, or even the ones that don’t ever make it off of your lips.

And still, He chooses you.

That’s a love that’s bigger than your fears in the dark.

I don’t know too much and certainly not everything. But I do know that God had been there all along. That he has not left us alone, even when we haven’t seen him, or we’ve forgotten about him for a while, or maybe even tried to forget. He had never forgotten us.

So keep whispering your prayers. I will too.

In the darkness and in the light, in feeble faith or bold. It’s okay. Because it turns out it’s not really that dependent on us anyway.

He’s STILL right there.

May he walk with us through the valley. Eventually, we’ll make it to the other side, whatever that looks like. He’ll be with us when we get there. But also, we don’t have to wait. He’s already here with us now. And He always has been.

You are not alone.

In the dark, we can also be found by LOVE.

Xoxo