Light Redemption from Wordstuck

Sometimes I get wordstuck. Sometimes it lasts for months. Yesterday’s post, in all it’s guttural honesty, was the beginning of getting unstuck. Today, the words are flowing more freely.

God started it with Genesis 1.3-4

My last tweet…

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Sometimes, specially in uncertain or challenging ones, God’s word in all its simplicity can do more than a thousand emotions to lift me. At moments of pain, a simple phrase can illustrate (light up) or inspire (breathe into) me when I feel like Flat Stanley. (Thanks Kem, though I’m sorry for what you went through, it gave perfect metaphor for so many these days.)

Truth is, I need light. I need it to see the dark. Without a light on in our house at night I may stumble on any number of things. Noah’s latest project involving an egg carton and 10 toothpicks sticking out the top. Nina’s new boots quickly discarded because they hampered the expressive spectrum of an interpretive dance. A random computer keyboard or mouse leftover from Saturday’s workshop. Silvester’s bed I forgot to move. Or Silvester himself.

The light reveals the obstacles. An illustration we have all heard a 1000 times. We get it.

But before I lived in the light, I didn’t know I was in the dark.

And sometimes, even now, I can get in the dark. Dark days. Dark forecasts. Dark attitudes (that I allow too easily to infect me). Dark thoughts (helplessness) that are a natural product of the aforementioned. Dark conversations where mis-statements become misunderstandings, or worse. I can get used to the light, and forget how easily the darkness requires a discipline of light-pursuit.

I need God to say, “Let there be light.”

And I need to say “It is good.”

And I need him to separate the darkness from the light for me.

There is always a dark corner. A dark room. A place in your house or office or school where the lights aren’t turned on. (And more so when you are conserving energy.) But when I get to the closet where I am looking for the vacuum cleaner attachment, I realize I can’t see, and I reach for the light.

“Ahhh! There it is!”

The light had taught me where the darkness was, or if you will, separated the two. When you are cold you want to feel warm because you remember what it is and long for it. When you are hot you want to cool off for the same reason. Hot and cold had been separated in your life, clearly, and you were drawn to a more middle-ground out of comfort, or maybe even survival.

So it is with dark days… I need to have God separate the light from the dark. What matters from what doesn’t matter. I need him to clarify, redirect if necessary, to illuminate and inspire. At times just for comfort from the bruising which life can bring.

But at times, for survival.

These days are difficult. And pressure reveals character. When you push on something, you find out how strong it is, and its weaknesses are revealed. I wish I could say that I find a stellar, goldish-colored character when uncertainty looms.

But I tend to find a twelve-year-old. Feeling like he should be an adult, but wanting to run back to the okay-ness of childhood where playing games was the hardest thing, and there was no swell of emotional feedback reeking of rejection. My twelve-year-old retreats into himself. I don’t know what yours does.

At times I have wished I were a take-the-bull-by-the-horns twelve-year-old. I’m not, though. I go in. And I wait for the ground to settle in my little earthquake before I stick my head out of my thoughts again. This can be somewhat backward. I forget that God will listen to whatever our hearts have to say. The good and the bad. The saintly and the smelly.

Stay in the light if you’re in it. Look to it if you haven’t for a while, be it days, months, years… minutes.

We’re not idiots for living in the dark. That is default mode for our human condition. Light life is a choice, like turning on the switch to find that narrow-nosed pointer thing for the vacuum. There’s no shame in needing light. There’s wisdom in reaching for the switch.

And when you do, likely, words will follow for you, too. I’d like to hear them.