Walking in Darkness

Darkness found me up the road at a neighbor's house who lives a little less than a half a mile away from the house.  Getting home meant walking down the two rut dirt lane as it meandered through the woods, across the branch, and up the hill to the house.  It was far past the time the chickens go to roost which meant is was past twilight and pitch dark.  As I started my walk I turned on the flashlight to light up the way through the darkness.  After a few minutes of walking, I turned off the light to see the darkness.  And it was darkness.  Nothing could be seen, but had I stood there for a short spell my eyes would have adapted to the darkness and some thing unseen would become seen things.

 

It is always that way when we walk in the darkness which sometimes becomes a part of our life.  Of course, the darkness we fear is not the one empty of light but the one empty of hope, or joy, or purpose.  It is the one where the way forward seems impossible to see. But, what we have learned through our walks through the different types of darkness which have overcome is the reality that eventually things unseen become things that are seen.  Even in the darkest of our dark walks we have come to the place where we have been enabled to see others walking with us.  Or, maybe we have been able to see an act of kindness, or an expression of concern, or the power of another's prayer. 

 

There are things to be seen in the darkness which comes into our lives.  Surely, one of those things is the One who said of Himself, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  (John 8:12)  It may be for us at first that even this divine and eternal light is impossible to see, but as we look into the darkness around us, we will see shadows of that holy presence as surely as we see the morning shadows of light before the sun breaks the morning horizon.