{"id":7713,"date":"2016-01-27T10:29:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T15:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=7713"},"modified":"2016-01-27T10:50:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T15:50:25","slug":"worship-wednesday-finding-god-in-the-dark-the-dark-that-cannot-extinguish-his-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=7713","title":{"rendered":"Worship Wednesday – Finding God in the Dark – the Dark that Cannot Extinguish His Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.<\/span> All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.<\/span>\u00a0<\/sup><\/span>In him was life, and the life was the light of men.<\/span> The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.<\/span><\/strong><\/em> – John 1:1-5<\/a><\/p>\n

How\u00a0extraordinary that revelation can come waiting in an exam room of a doctor’s office! I was waiting…of course, and noticed the pile of magazines on the counter (to help us waiting lose count of the time). In the pile was an old issue of a Time<\/a> magazine. The cover story was intriguing. Who of us hasn’t\u00a0considered, if not encountered,\u00a0God during a dark night of the soul?<\/p>\n

Flipping\u00a0the pages over to the article, I found a familiar face. A face I hadn’t seen in decades: Barbara Brown…well, Barbara Brown Taylor now. She was my residence advisor my first year in the dorms of Emory University. \"Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>I loved our occasional talks together. She was funny, beautiful,\u00a0loving, very real, and captivating – to be so close to our ages yet wise beyond her years. Flawed like the rest of us, but yielded somehow to an otherness of life that gives grace to our flaws, and her own.<\/p>\n

\"Blog<\/a>Photo Credit: qotd.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Barbara Brown Taylor. That day I was glad for the long wait and devoured the Time article (by Elizabeth Dias). It’s\u00a0lovely to rediscover a friend from our past and to find one who had become so celebrated.<\/p>\n

[Sidebar: It was just that same week when I found another old friend via Facebook. He and I lived across from each other, in an old brick apartment building, while\u00a0in our 20’s. Rick Holm was a medical resident and I was the cancer nurse specialist at Grady Hospital<\/a> in those days. We became friends and shared friends, and Saturday morning coffee, and late night stories. Now that same\u00a0Rick Holm is The Prairie Doc<\/a>, of Brookings, South Dakota. I wasn’t surprised.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Learning to Walk in the Dark<\/span><\/u><\/a>, shared some of her story in that magazine article and her thinking on experiencing the dark. Many of us try to avoid the darkness but, for Barbara, it is a place (or experience) to embrace – to discover, and to discover God there. The video<\/a> produced by The Work of the People <\/a>gives a winsome glimpse into what she talks about in her book – through clips of her and other writers talking about pain.\"Blog<\/a>Photo Credit: The Work of the People<\/a><\/p>\n

I personally prefer light to darkness, although much of what she\u00a0and her cohorts in the video say\u00a0about darkness is.\u00a0We have nightlights in the house, not because anyone is afraid of the dark but, to avoid not falling, tripping over something or running painfully\u00a0into something.<\/p>\n

We definitely need to learn from the darkness in our lives, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes. We are meant to incorporate that learning into the grace we have for ourselves and those around us in their own darknesses. It’s the light, though, that I am most grateful for. The pitch-black dark of suffering will come to all of us, sometimes in ways we can’t even fathom in daytime.<\/p>\n

This one thing I know: We are never alone in that dark place.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Poetry by Deborah Ann Belka<\/a><\/p>\n

In this moment…the darknesses closest to my heart (hard family situations, the suffering in the world, my own fears) are\u00a0brightened in the light of God’s Word.\u00a0\u00a0I recognize that, in the darkness around us,\u00a0there is a call to action. We are meant to do whatever we can to bring light into the darkness of others. I am reminded of Chris Rice’s song Go Light the World<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

We can trust the Giver of Light to emblazon our darkness.<\/p>\n

Jesus is familiar with darkness. <\/strong>– He brought light into the darkness at the creation of our world (Genesis 1:1-4<\/a>,\u00a0John 1:1-5<\/a>); his birth was heralded by angels to shepherds in the dark of that Bethlehem night (Luke 2:8-16<\/a>);\u00a0he lived a life that exposed the darkness through the light of His truth and love (John 8:12<\/a>); seeking the Father’s face in\u00a0the dark (Mark 1:35<\/a>);\u00a0surrendering His life for ours on a cross \u00a0against a black midday sky (Mark 15:33<\/a>);\u00a0resurrected from the darkness of a\u00a0tomb (Luke 24<\/a>);\u00a0– with us now in every situation we can’t see our way out of (Deuteronomy 31:6<\/a>, Matthew 28:20<\/a>)\u00a0… His light will never be extinguished by the dark (John 1:5).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever our darkness, He brings light. <\/strong>Worship with me:<\/p>\n