Search for the Light, then Bask in It

Our little pekingese, Izzy, loves the sunlight. She rambles through the house in pursuit of the sunshine. Once there she lies down and basks in it. She naps until that light moves, then she moves with it. Always in pursuit of the warm sunlight.

I’ve learned to do that, too. I’ve had to learn it, because there’s too much darkness in life. Some of it I’ve chosen and some of it has chosen me.

Fear and panic, anxiety and depression. Each has plagued my life at times.

There was a time in my life when fear and anxiety enveloped me. It not only affected my mind but it wreaked havoc in my body. My muscles ached and sleep was elusive. I picked up every virus and infection and could hardly function some days.

Sometimes I would awaken at night in a panic. I’d bolt upright in bed almost suffocating from anxious thoughts. My heart rate would increase, I’d break out into a cold sweat, and I could hardly catch my breath.

Panic attacks.

The first few times it happened my husband would grab me and ask what was wrong. Most of the time I couldn’t even tell him. He never became frustrated with me, he would only click on the lamp and say, “We need light. We’re going to chase this darkness away.”

Within minutes of him consoling me and trying to calm me, I’d lay back down and fall asleep, with the lights still on. The panic attacks would last only for a few minutes, but the affects of that adrenaline pumping through my body and sparking that fight-or-flight response would linger and leave me exhausted for days.

It was a vicious cycle.

I knew that something had to give. The cycle had to be stopped. For my family’s sake and for mine.

I didn’t seek counseling, but I should have. I knew that if I did, then I would have to tell the secrets that plagued me for years. Secrets that had safely been buried so no one would ever discover them. Buried deep. In darkness.

The same darkness that enveloped my secrets had also enveloped my mind. Fear of losing my children because of the one I had chosen to abort. Fear of some deadly pestilence overtaking me as punishment. Every bruise surely meant leukemia, every headache was certainly a tumor growing. Loss of sleep and my appetite caused my nutrition to plummet. Exercise was out of the question because–most days–I could hardly stumble out of bed.

My body and my mind were falling apart,but the doctors could find nothing. They tried. I saw every specialist and gave them my long list of symptoms, but they could find nothing. Test after test came back negative. Something was wrong, but it wasn’t physiological.

My emotions had wreaked havoc in my body and my life. Because of the overwhelming darkness casting shadows into every area of my existence.

We don’t think that darkness can grow anything, but it does. It grows fear, anxiety, panic, and depression. It grows lies. It grows defeat. To compound all of that it grew guilt and shame and regret…and it grew sickness.

Only when I chose to dig deep into that hole of darkness and reveal the secret that hid underneath did bits of light begin to penetrate it.

Daniel 2:22 says, “He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with him.”

Just like my husband had turned on that lamp to dispel the darkness, I needed Jesus to do the same thing in my heart. He said it himself in John 12:46 “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” Jesus. He said that!

The light didn’t instantly flood that dark place, but as I revisited that time of darkness–that fateful moment at the clinic, the days of pain that followed, the years of wandering and choosing the wrong path–Jesus and I poked holes in that darkness.

Soon those holes gave way to penetrating light and later I was able to allow God to use my hurt to help expose and mend someone else’s.

I trained to become a counselor at our local pregnancy center. I held hands and prayed with other women who were facing the same tough decisions. Other times my story helped someone in an unrelated circumstance but difficult all the same.

Yes, Jesus–the Light of the World–flooded my dark places. He took my fear and replaced it with peace. My depressed and debilitated body was healed, my secret was replaced with truth, and my shame replaced with grace.

And when life’s circumstances hand me dark days that threaten to overtake me, He still reminds me to look for the light. To pursue it like a sunny window. To find it and bask in it. Because that’s where He resides. In the light.