When someone first hears I lost a baby at almost full term, it is there. When someone asks if my son is my first child and I tell them I have four angels in heaven too, it is there. When someone hears I want to commit my life to advocating for the broken and ministering to other parents that have lost their babies, it is there: that lingering stare, that squirmy silence, that quivering lip that wants so badly to tell me they are sorry. They want so badly to shift my eyes back to the happy, the prosperous, the fun, the “feel good” side of the world; to keep me from looking at the darkness.
I understand. I do. But the thing is… My Jesus told me I AM the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14) He told me HE is the light of the world and that whoever follows Him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (John 8:12) He also made it very clear that although light has come into the world, people love darkness. And they love darkness because their deeds are evil. (John 3:19) In the darkness, there is no accountability. In the darkness, there is no compulsion to do better. In the darkness, anything goes. In the darkness, deep slumber is welcome. In the darkness, there is no light. So I am not surprised that those who love me heed warning against walking too close to the darkness… except that I am called to be the light. The very light they are fumbling around in the darkness trying to find. I know because I have been there.
If we never find the courage to enter in where darkness has enveloped people, if we just keep standing with all the other lights where it is warm and bright, we will never serve our purpose at all. Light is most needed in the darkness. Hope is most desperately desired in despair. Cries for healing come from the lips of the broken. I have not been given this light of Christ to put under a bowl, to keep to myself, but to go out into the dark world; to share the hope I have been given. To kneel down and let my hands be the ones who mend little hearts, my fingers were made to wipe dirty tears away, my heart – this new one Christ gave me – is big enough to love the unlovable. I remember well who I was before and it is no small thing – NO SMALL THING – how God has changed me, changed my want to, changed my convictions. To deny that change, to exchange the burden for the blanket, to exchange the calling for the comfort, to turn inward instead of reaching outward… would be undeniable sin.
I choose obedience. I choose to follow. I choose to get up and go when everything in me screams to just stay in the bed. I just to keep walking long after my feet have wanted to be propped up someplace else. I choose to keep teaching even as my throat closes up in fear around the words. I choose to keep reaching for those deemed unreachable, even as my hands tremble. I choose to keep opening my door and my arms, even as I hear so many calling to me to close it tight, to choose safety and self-preservation instead.
Oh what if my Jesus had chosen those things instead!
I choose to believe what I cannot see, to go where I am called to go, to do what I have been called to do. However great or small, this is Christ’s plan for me. Far be it for me to say where I will go and what I will do, who I will accept or embrace. I cannot know what eternity holds. I do not know who has been waiting for this little light of mine in a darkness all their own, all their lives. I don’t know. I just know I choose to enter into the darkness, to look it full in the face, because He first dared to enter and look into mine.
Then, and only then, will I - in Him – shine and be the light to others so they may know Christ the way I have been blessed to know Him.
If we never find the courage to enter in where darkness has enveloped people, if we just keep standing with all the other lights where it is warm and bright, we will never serve our purpose at all. Light is most needed in the darkness. Hope is most desperately desired in despair. Cries for healing come from the lips of the broken. I have not been given this light of Christ to put under a bowl, to keep to myself, but to go out into the dark world; to share the hope I have been given. To kneel down and let my hands be the ones who mend little hearts, my fingers were made to wipe dirty tears away, my heart – this new one Christ gave me – is big enough to love the unlovable. I remember well who I was before and it is no small thing – NO SMALL THING – how God has changed me, changed my want to, changed my convictions. To deny that change, to exchange the burden for the blanket, to exchange the calling for the comfort, to turn inward instead of reaching outward… would be undeniable sin.
I choose obedience. I choose to follow. I choose to get up and go when everything in me screams to just stay in the bed. I just to keep walking long after my feet have wanted to be propped up someplace else. I choose to keep teaching even as my throat closes up in fear around the words. I choose to keep reaching for those deemed unreachable, even as my hands tremble. I choose to keep opening my door and my arms, even as I hear so many calling to me to close it tight, to choose safety and self-preservation instead.
Oh what if my Jesus had chosen those things instead!
I choose to believe what I cannot see, to go where I am called to go, to do what I have been called to do. However great or small, this is Christ’s plan for me. Far be it for me to say where I will go and what I will do, who I will accept or embrace. I cannot know what eternity holds. I do not know who has been waiting for this little light of mine in a darkness all their own, all their lives. I don’t know. I just know I choose to enter into the darkness, to look it full in the face, because He first dared to enter and look into mine.
Then, and only then, will I - in Him – shine and be the light to others so they may know Christ the way I have been blessed to know Him.
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