A few weeks ago during a frigid ice storm we lost our power. Plunged immediately into darkness, we quickly rounded up a plethora of candles, flipped light switches accidentally, forgetting we had been swallowed up by this unexpected darkness. How long will this last? What about our dinner all prepped for the oven? I'm getting hungry! We built a fire in the fireplace, made tuna sandwiches, donned bulky sweaters and gazed into the flickering orange light. And we waited for relief.
God is the light in my darkness, the voice in my silence.
~Helen Keller
Outside, the temperature dipped way low, freezing rain coated the cars, the streets, and the pelting sound it made against the window caused me to shiver right cold. We huddled under blankets, watched the blazing embers in the fire, chatted and waited for the power to return. I went to bed super early, my nose and lips now too cold to hold a conversation. When our world is draped in inky darkness and relief is an upside down question mark, where do we pin our gaze? Thankfully, the power returned late in the night, and when we woke the next morning our part of the world was covered in thick sheets of ice. But we had heat, hot water and lights to pave our way.
And this sundial I inherited from my mother, it froze right solid, its ability to indicate time impaired by a blanket of ice. I watched it that day, studied the stillness and immobility of it all. This garden decoration, it needs the light to move forward, and now cloaked in frozen rain it appeared to be waiting for the light to reappear, the dark clouds and temperature to shift. I chewed on the thought much like a child concentrating on a Frozen jigsaw puzzle, the edges of the puzzle sliding together just right, the center taking shape, Elsa's sparkling blue eyes appear. It came then, this epiphany from above as I shouldered the camera strap. Click Click.Click.
Maybe the darkness can be my friend. That underneath the inky surface of circumstances, trials, there lies a deeper understanding, a wiser soul, a calmer presence, less fear of the unknown. Would I recognize one without the other? Could the light flood as bright without trodding through the rough patches? And He who orchestrates it all, the maestro of circumstances is the same friend who sends those rescuing beams of light, in His time, fashioned His own way.
And like the glistening stars hanging above, their brilliance is lessened, their light dimmed without the jet-black night to usher them in.
