What do you say when headlines glare the murder of 19 children?

What do you say when you scroll across the death of a sweet womens husband that you know?

What do you say when tradegy after tradegy happens in a world like birth pangs of a women?

Wave after wave they come and they dont seem to be letting up anytime soon. Like the dark stormy waves of an ocean that crash against the shore. These days it feels more like being slammed against the cliffs and rocks with all this pain and horrifying sadness. Where are the gentle laps of the white sands of days gone by gone to?

Recently I listened to a podcast where a women named Susan Cain was talking about her new book called Bittersweet. I listened as I flipped bacon and cooked over easy eggs. She talked about how once upon a time we had words for these types of things. Words that shaped and helped define our sorrow and longing for better days. She talked about how light and dark have always co-existed in this life and writer after writer framed its pathways. These days we seem to have great loads of language for staying positive and living our best lives but the darker shadowy moments are brushed away with “its all good” and “Im fine” punch lines. Its like our souls are addicted to the high life. We have no palette anymore for the somber notes of life. How do we handle it with no context?

Don’t let anyone see you struggle? Don’t let them see you cry?

Don’t show the shadows and dark of your human life?

Ignore it or Scream about it … either way is it helping us?

I remember when I was young and I had no anchor for my soul. I would write the words: I long for the rainbows, and stars, and dream of better days. I felt ache deeply. I was a bit of a meloncholic. Always listening to music that seemed to describe the thinness of my soul and the loneliness I felt. I was always looking for love in any place I could find it. The darker days of my life mulled over and assimilated. Im a bit of a contempletive and poetic. Looking for the meaning behind the shadows and shades of my life. I never was afraid of myself looking at my darker places. After Christ, His light sifts those spaces and somehow His presence brings beauty from ashes and joy from sorrow. Somehow His life retranslates mine.

There is a whole generation crying out.

Dark moody ways.

Slinging hurt and pain.

Trying on any ol’ disguised and stained jacket.

Hoping to find themselves among the tatters.

I am reminded of something I heard recently, someone said from one of my many readings or listenings, “When a king conquers another king, that victorious king would cut off the defeated kings robe and sew it to the end of his own.”

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

Isaiah 6:1-3

Our God and King has overcome every other king and enemy! His robe fills the temple.

It’s hard enough for us to live in this world with all of it’s broken disaster, and yet, it would be harder still if there were no light to pierce the darkness and if that darkness could overtake it.

Jesus is the Light.

Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.  ³⁶ While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

John 12:35-36

Pure light came from heaven and walked among men through the dark of this world. The darkest day was coming, when the Son of God would be crucified. He was the light that exposed mens darkness. They would think theywere getting rid of Him, and yet what they did not understand was that He laid His life down for their sake.

Light has always dispelled darkness. In the midst of light shining the darkness flees.

So when life plays the sad songs of our often melancholy existence. Dont forget to listen for the sounds of Jesus in a minor key. On days like today where we see and feel that sin, evil, and death have made their grand display of power. It is here in the midst of the darker refrains, when the curtains that have been drawn on the lives of human kind, that we who walk in the light as He is in the light can become the hands and feet to the broken. We become the people of hope, healing, and reminder that in the end:

God wins and the whole earth will be full of His glory!

Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

Jesus is the only answer from heaven to the darkness of our world.

Thanks for listening,

Starla