Into the Depths

This pretty much describes my day, in more ways than one. I woke up early this morning after 5 hours of sleep for the second day in a row. It took me ten minutes to get my contacts in, I put on the wrong pair of shoes, and I forgot my coffee. Got into a gold, 15 passenger van and drove to Mammoth Cave, KY. Realized I was wearing the wrong shoes and attempted to hide it, which earned me an extremely dirty look from our tour guide when she called me out for it. Luckily, there was a very nice kid there who had an extra pair of boots that he graciously lent me :) Then, we descended into the depths of the earth for three hours of crawling through dark, muddy tunnels.

Before we left this morning, I prompted our group with a question. And all day, I have been plagued by my own question: What is it that brings light to your darkness? The quick answer is God. And that's true. But my attempt to end the answer at that was thwarted when I came to a realization: I create a lot of my own darkness. More often than not, I choose to hide in and embrace the darkness in my life, because it is far more comfortable than the blinding light of God. And I wonder why my heart is restless and heavy. I wrap myself in ebony comfort, both lamenting and refusing to relinquish it. In a lot of ways, I am the creator of my own misery.

God's light does not brush, persuade or push the darkness away. It completely obliterates it. It is like staring into a floodlight that has been switched on without warning in the depths of a cave. Unexpected, instant, and painful. So it is unsurprising that the familiarity of the darkness is more appealing, when pain and uncertainty are the alternatives. But there is no freedom to be found in the comfort of darkness. Embracing darkness means resigning yourself to it. It dooms you to a life of wandering blindly through the endless tunnels where darkness thrives.

It comes down to a terrifying choice. Choose to remain in the darkness, alone and naive but comfortable. Or choose to obliterate the darkness. It means pain, confusion, and probably some terror too. Who knows what you will see, when your surroundings are finally brought to light? Who knows what horrors have been hiding in that darkness? But that light means you can find your way out. That light promises a day when you will stumble out of the world of rock and mud and darkness. When you will feel the sun on your skin, the wind on your face, the grass under your feet.

It promises freedom.
"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16