A Life-Giving Dark
What if the dark is a life-giving dark?
Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening. Is the light even there? It feels dark, and the light seems too far ahead...
In one of my favorite books, When The Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd says that Jesus' transformation was like "the waiting room of new life. The darkness of death was transformed into a life-giving dark."
Beauty in the dirt.
Beauty in the dark.
Beauty in the mess.
These have been some of the most clearly emerging themes of my life. As a farmer, I feel this everyday - tangibly - with my hands.
What if LIFE is growing beneath the surface? More like a seed or a womb than a tomb?
Here is where God pulses life into our dark places and difficult stories. And He will. Oh He will. Because EASTER says we are saved from darkness. The light is ALWAYS breaking through.
I remember the first time I learned about the word “eastering” - it was from a quote by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins as quoted by Sue Monk Kidd in When The Heart Waits…
"Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east."
HE is the light shining through us, and our lives can reflect that. Sue Monk Kidd says that to let him easter in us is to “let the Christ-life incubate within the darkness of our waiting." At the end of this time is emergence, like a butterfly from a cocoon. We emerge closer to the true selves God created us to be.
I first read this book in 2007, and it’s one of those books filled with underlined sentences and notes in the margin. I can look back and see the younger woman I was almost 14 years ago, before I became a mother, and before I even entered my thirties. I’m not the same person I was then, but also, the truest parts of me are still there.
In the years that have past, I’ve seen time and time again that God grows something beautiful of out of the mess. And the more I’m willing to LET the change happen rather than CLING to things in fear, I grow more into the Christine I was meant to be. One who is confident, joyful, ready to take risks and walk through the fear in bravery, and pour into the lives of others. One who sees that the dark is temporary, and there is ALWAYS life and light breaking through.
My hope is that you will know deep in your soul today that you are fought-for, loved, and made in the image of God.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot extinguish it.”
I can’t think of anything more hopeful than this.
What did Easter show you this year?
