Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the LORD and relies upon his God?
This is an interesting concept, that we can trust in the Lord and rely on God and still be in darkness. Personally, I rather like the notion that to rely in God means that my path will be illumined. Alas, it is not always so. Trusting in God does not mean darkness doesn’t come, or that we can quickly pass through that darkness. It does mean that we are not alone in the darkness.
The accompanying reflection is from Richard Foster and he suggests that this darkness comes to all of us at one time or another. We feel lost and we don’t know our way. Even if we did know the way, it’s dark and we can’t see anyway. He suggests this is another way to think of the dark night of the soul, a time where we feel distanced from God, and out of sorts. We have such a shiny happy culture that no one is comfortable with this sense of distance or darkness. We who go through it want to rush, and those around us suggest we should snap out of it.
Foster argues that we should rather abide in that darkness, with our trust and reliance in God. God will carry us through, in God’s time. Until then, we are to be in the still and silent darkness with a deep faith in God. Maybe these dark times are a way for all of the shiny busy things in our lives to be stripped away, so we actually can be still and silent. I like the notion of stillness and silence, and struggle to actually find any in my life.
I’m thinking of the late night awakenings, when I cannot get back to sleep. I don’t like that silence and stillness. Tomorrow, I have things to do, places to be. I cannot just lie awake now as it will ruin my plans for tomorrow. Um, maybe that’s just a mini opportunity for stillness, silence and resting with God. This morning, well rested, I can imagine that next night-time awakening, I’ll contentedly lie awake and pray and be grateful for the time. But in the midst of that little mini-darkness, it is really really tough to rest in anything. If I cannot manage to abide in that relatively brief darkness, it’s hard to imagine contentedly resting in God for a whole dark season. And yet, that’s what we should try to do.
My loved one is doing amazingly well, medically. For the past 6 weeks, they’ve been med-compliant, and connecting with us in ways we haven’t for probably 10 years. They are very grateful for our new town, where there are more people who look like them than look like us. This has not been true since they were a baby. They are making friends, and navigating our neighborhood quite well.
The good part of this is their increased independence and decreased reliance on us. The hard part is their increased independence and decreased reliance on us. They are now making life choices that more closely reflect what a ‘normal’ wild child would do. With their past 4 years being very ill, they seem to be also catching up on some of that wildness. And through it all, they are immensely happy.
I would love to be able to control and regulate their every move, their every friend, their every choice. We have done that to some extent for the past four years, and they were definitely not happy. The insidious illness would make it difficult for anyone to be happy.
I’m faced with the Sophie’s choice of my loved one’s safety and their happiness. And I feel very much in the dark. I’m slowly realizing that happiness is the only real choice. First of all, they have not been genuinely happy for so long. And the nature of this illness is such that their time of darkness and likely hospitalization will come again. This happiness is fleeting for them. More realistic though, I’m realizing I cannot actually do much to make a young adult safe. I cannot control their actions, their comings and goings, their friends, their choices.
My husband and I are struggling to remember how to support someone who’s defiant, less than safe, and happy. In this darkness, all I can do is remember that God is with me, and with my loved one, enjoy this time of happiness, and try to stay out of the way.
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