Sometimes, I feel overcome by shadows.
The shadows strangle and suffocate and remind me of who I once was.
Sometimes, the world feels submerged by shadows.
The shadows loom with constant heaviness and evil and twisted truth of a “perverse generation”, indeed.
Sometimes, I feel like a shadow.
Sinful. Broken. Damaged. A diminished light.
When I was a child, I was afraid of the kind of darkness brought by nightfall. I would awaken in the middle of the night and pull every blanket over my face. It wasn’t so much the darkness that was scary, but what I could not see. Was something hiding? Lurking? I knew very well what my bedroom looked like, where the dresser was, the nightstand, the closet doors with gold trim…but what this underlying feeling of angst caused me to wonder, was this:
Is there something else in this dark room?
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.'”
Have you ever wandered through a dark hallway? Played hide and seek in the dark? Or indeed, experienced a darkness “that can be felt”? It is that feeling of paranoia and even survival to force such dilated pupils to somehow see the unseen. What lurks in here? What haunts the halls in which I walk? How do I brace myself for what might emerge?
….When really, all we need to do is flick the light on.
Open up the window. Open the curtains. Flick the light switch on. Shine a flash light.
Suddenly, through even but a glimmer or speck of light, the darkness eradicates. Its heaviness lifts. The unknown is exposed to LIGHT.
And the darkness has no power over the light. Even the tiniest speck. The darkness has not overcome the light, my friends.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord…”
…”Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them…”
“…But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light…”
…This is why it is said:
1 Comment
Shanda
This passage has brought so much clarity to my life in the last 6 months, and some major decisions have been made because of it. The Word of God is light for our feet and light for our path. Nothing exposes darkness quite like His word. So much wrapped up in that Ephesians passage. You captured beautifully. It was a blessing to read this and be reminded of not a chance, but the absolute power over darkness.