John (age 5) won’t go upstairs if the lights are off.  Darkness is a blank canvas for our imaginations to paint quite the picture with the medium of fear.  Even though he knows exactly where the light switches are, being alone in the dark even for a brief second delivers a sense of lostness, vulnerability and panic that is just way to uncomfortable to willingly permit ourselves to feel.  But something magical happens when he walks with mama or daddy. The darkness, though no lighter than before, becomes endurable.  We were born with an innate need and desire to trust.  God made us that way in order that we might know our need for Him and therefore become dependent children.  When we walk with a parent, we know we are safe in the hand of the one who leads.  We don’t need to see if we trust that they can.  In other words:

Darkness + Isolation = Fear.
But Darkness + Dependence = Security.

Perhaps this is why the darkness of my wilderness was so scary for me…I wasn’t sure that I trusted God anymore.  Who did I have to depend on?  I wanted it to be God and yet something in me told me to be cautious.  Though I used every tool in my trusty spiritual toolbox, my feelings protested that I’d been abandoned by the One I’d preached would “never leave us nor forsake us.”  I felt alone.  I felt dropped off in the wilderness and abandoned by the God who promised to be with me.  Worse yet, I feared He was the one who’d nudged me out of the plane.  Where was He when she was dying?  Why did He permit this?  I knew of His power, I had preached and proclaimed it.  So why was His power withheld in the moment in my life when I had needed it the most?  These were the questions (to name a few) that were beating unceasingly on the door of my heart.  Like robbers, they were advancing ready to snatch the truths that had once anchored me in trust.  Who was and where was Jesus?  These were the inquiries I shouted at the sky as I vacillated between anger and fear, pacing, shivering in the pitch black woods.  Big bad monster night had swallowed the light of day and I was stuck in not only inconsolable sadness but spiritual torment as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I desperately wanted to BELIEVE in God to be the hero I’d always trusted Him to be.  I wanted to be comforted by His word, rescued by the truths I’d always stood upon before without question or reservation.  But now that foundation felt like quick sand and there was nothing I could do to make the feelings go away.  Three weeks after Anna’s death I finally admitted to myself that I was reeling spiritually and questioning where God had been and where He was now.   And honestly, even if I surrendered to the age old truth that God in fact had never left me, I wasn’t sure I wanted Him around anymore.  “Was Jesus trustworthy?” This was the overriding message that seemed to be written in the smoke of the smoldering ashes of my life.

Tormented; One part of my soul aching to be held and comforted by my heavenly father, world renown heart surgeon, and yet the other part pulling away.  I felt like a wife who had been betrayed by an unfaithful husband.  The Savior I had assumed I knew so well was not behaving like my history with Him predicted He would.  How could I trust again?  But how could I deny my love and need for this God?  Tears led to desperation, which led to prayer.  Opening up to God led to painful questions, which in turn led to pulling away…like I said, Tormented!

And so by the prompting of King David I finally stepped out of hiding.  Presenting my crippled faith to Jesus I borrowed King David’s words and cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22:1.  It was in the moments that followed this brutally honest encounter with God that I saw Him for the first time since Anna had died.  Once again print from the pages of the big black book came to life and I was awakened and established in the proclamation:

“Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”  Hebrews 13:5

Though not the answer I was looking for to my demanding question, it was the exact answer my orphaned heart needed to hear and believe!

The precious and sacred moment when these words became shelter for me goes like this:

I had just finished emptying my tormented heart to my new grief counselor when he (in desperation I suppose) suggested we pray. Eyes closed, I turned with the eyes of my heart to discover Jesus sitting next to me on a three cushion couch.  I was on the far right, He on the far left.  He was staring at me, piercing me with a look that left me feeling completely uncomfortable and yet totally entranced and intrigued.  Uncomfortable, because for all the silent yelling and accusing I’d been doing, this was not the face of a man who had prepared a rebuttal.  There was no defense. Instead, there was softness, a tenderness that seemed ill-fitting for the fight we were obviously in.  I noticed that His hand was extended, palm upward on the vacant cushion between us.

I opened my eyes, perplexed and overwhelmed that my mind was projected something like a waking dream.  What was this?  I sensed the extended arm was a silent invitation to hold His hand.  Opening my eyes was an attempt to avoid the offer.  I was still trying to figure God out.  Would holding His hand allow me the space I needed to do that?  But like I said, there was something so completely magnetizing about Him.  I couldn’t help it, I closed my eyes again to discover the same picture before me.  I saw His hand and then I looked up to greet His eyes, and I was locked.  The best words that I can conjure to describe the stare that held me are loving-kindness.  I reached out hesitantly and then felt my hand as it folded into His, and He said (words vibrating with tenderness) “I’m not going anywhere!”  The sentence seemed to dive from His lips through ever layer of hostile and painful murky water that had become the mush of my heart and faith. I felt those words reach the bottom, and grip something deep within me. And I knew…I was not, nor had I ever been alone.  Suddenly I clutched His hand extra tight, like a life preserver, realizing I had a guide in this pitch black woods I found myself now calling home.  The dark water was still there, the questions, the pain, the horrific grief, but one thing was realized in the core of my being, I NEEDED to belong to this God.  I NEEDED to know that He was with me and that no manner of my yelling and fighting would repel Him from me.  There was permission to allow myself to belong to Him, while figuring Him out.  There was an invitation to receive His partnership while at the same time processing and punching if need be.  He had gripped something so central to the very fabric of the way I’d been created.  He had by-passed every accusation and spoke to the unaffected child within me.  Looking back I think He knew exactly what my heart would need to know and believe about him first in order that I might be able to swim up and deal with the murky layers above.  I was not alone and though I was still unsure about Jesus, about why this death had been permitted, I was completely sure about one thing:  He was undoubtedly the One I wanted to be with in the dark.

When I opened my eyes I discovered that I was smiling.  I hadn’t smiled in nearly a month.  I was mad, angry and hurt but I couldn’t deny that something within me had just been rescued by Jesus.  The joy I felt at our encounter testified to my wounded feelings that in deed He was not the bad guy my fears had predicted.  My feelings, though understandable would at some point in time find rescue from this man.

Let me ask you…have you ever felt (or are you feeling now) as if the God you are fighting with is also the answer to your pain?  Are you wondering how to live with these two opposing components dwelling within you?  The answer is, God is not going anywhere and allowing yourself to acknowledge your need for His companionship, even with all your rage and confusion will be to your benefit in the dark. We were made for dependence and even though your heart and your pain may be whispering that God is the enemy, He in fact is the remedy.

Jesus spoke similar words to His disciple’s right before He ascended into heaven.  I imagine He knew that they would feel abandoned as well.  He was physically leaving His dearest friends to a brutal and hostile world.  And so His parting words to them were, “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20 NLT)  The promise of His presence (the Holy Spirit) was intended to be an answer to the loneliness and desperation He knew they would soon feel.  This proclamation requires faith.  He was asking His disciples to believe He was present with them invisibly, which would certainly be difficult given the fact that they had become dependent upon Him physically.  Now He is asking the same of us. Hebrews 11:1 comes to mind:  “Now faith is being confident in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

As I enter the dark woods of February, by faith I see the tent before me and I am literally running to get inside.  As I sit down and look up I see the words of Jesus embroidered above and around me, words like “Take heart, I have overcome the world” and “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” The permanent presence of Jesus is a need our spirits will not deny given the opportunity to believe it, no matter how tragic our circumstances or brutal our fighting against Him.  And as I sit in the tent I am able to see my companion and guide sitting before me.  I look once again into the loving kindness of Jesus that melts every layer of my fear as He tenderly whispers, “It’s February and I’m not going anywhere.”

We are not alone!  God cannot help but gravitate to our orphaned feelings in the crisis of life.  He is drawn to our loneliness because He exists to be our guide…darkness is His specialty.  We are not alone!  It may feel like it and seem like it, but right now in the space you dwell, however dark it may be, the face of Jesus is before you, right behind the invisible curtain and His hand is extended to you in invitation.  Can you hear His still, small voice?  “I’m not going anywhere!”  Crawl inside with me and be at home in these words.  The wind may still be howling, the shadows of tree branches morphed into frightening creatures of the night.  But in the tent we are safe.  We are not alone!