No Stranger to Darkness

"There are as many nights as days,

and the one is just as long as

the other in a year's course.

Even a happy life cannot be

without a measure of darkness,

and the word 'happy' would

lose it's meaning if it

were not balanced by sadness"

~ Carl Jung

Today is Good Friday ~ the day we remember Christ's ultimate sacrifice for us. I spent my morning in a spiritual time of remembrance and reflection within a worship community that I now feel comfortable saying is a place where I feel like I have "come home". There is just something about this place of worship that truly fills my spirit....where I can feel a deeper connection to my spiritual essence.

A dominant theme in this morning's message was ~ darkness. Remembering the darkness that is prevalent in Jesus' death on the cross for us....for our sins. As He spoke the words....the prayer...."My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"

I am all to familiar with darkness....as many of us are. Darkness is a part of life for all of us at some point in our journey. For some of us the darkness comes much more often, on a very deep level. The feelings of hopelessness and aloneness that consume the very essence of my being in that state of darkness are absolutely terrifying. How many times have I questioned....why me? Will this darkness ever end? Am I going to be able to take that next breath? But, despite my spiritual essence, have I turned to prayer...spoken my words to God and called out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" Sure I have felt that, but have I truly called out. Instead I am one who chooses to face life's challenges alone...."stand on my own two feet"...with the support of others being offered, but rarely asked for. What would it be like in that place of darkness to call out....to reach out....in prayer, in spoken words....as Jesus did with faith and hope.

When I think of darkness, the times of aloneness and hopelessness, I cannot help but be brought to a place of thinking about the depths of the pit of darkness. That place where you feel you cannot get out. Where the light doesn't come. I live nearly each and every day fighting that battle....the battle of not being in that place of the most ultimate darkness where the glimmer of light...the glimmer of hope, doesn't come. I have had many conversations with my dear friend on this one ~ how in a blink of an eye it could be us in that place....the place where we don't get out. This thought has been a dominant presence for me on my journey over the last year and a half.....on the journey of being sure that I will be healthy enough to never be in that place. To be able to say with absolute confidence, no matter how much darkness shadows me ~ I choose life. Yes, I choose life....I choose health....and in order to do so, I choose to live in truth.

I cling to hope....the precious hope that is often hard to find....the real hope and a firm belief ~ the faith ~ that life truly is worth living....even in the times of darkness.

In your times of darkness remember that light is always there to "balance" the darkness...

As spoken by a Holocaust survivor ~ "we all have the potential to turn a dark room light." Because yes, light is always there, even when it is hard to find.