Darkness is not dark to you… Psalm 139:12a

I love reading a good book. A good story hooks me with its plot and makes me invested in its characters. When the titular crisis comes, when I get to the climax, I can feel anxiety building up in me. I often find myself unwilling to put the book down, unable to let go until I know how things will turn out. Sometimes, I will even read ahead just to assure myself that everything will be okay.

Waiting is sitting in the unknown. Life is not a story were we can skip ahead when we feel uncomfortable.

So I make plans and hope and trust that things will work out. If they don’t, I pick myself up and try again. I look for the positive signs around me, like spring breaking forth from winter.

Looking back at the hard times I have faced in my life, I can point to so many instances where I found a silver lining to bolster my spirit. I would cry, express myself in some creative fashion, talk to God and then carry on after finding the hope and trust again.

When I lived in Norway during my third year of University, I went out and bought a guitar so I could sing when my spirit was down. (I was there in Norway learning the folk arts – weaving, wood carving, pottery – as well as sewing, knitting, painting and drawing. Lots of art to process my emotions)

In Chicago, when I was sick with sensitivities for two years, I got up at 4 am to get in painting and a quiet time before my son awoke for the day.

When I went to paint the devastation of the oil sands in Scarred Lands, Scarred Hearts, a butterfly showed up in the painting. 

When I was in despair over a tough situation, I painted a rainbow in, Cascade of Hope, Athabasca Falls.

When I got tendonitis in one arm, I overworked my other, because I couldn’t just stop.

I had to learn how take breaks. To appreciate the value of sitting and being present. I have learned much about waiting. I have even learned to ask for help, a bit.

Yet, as I am leading a retreat in Morocco in November which sits on the edge of the Sahara Desert, I have been thinking about the desert. about the darkness, about times like the Holy Saturday (the day between the crucifixion and resurrection): when all is lost, when we are dying of thirst, when we feel abandoned, when all seems without hope, anxiously waiting for the unknown.

Desert:

Absence of God
Shadow of Death
Hardship/trials
Dry/thirsty
Holy Saturday
Waiting in the unknown

In life we cannot read ahead, but I often want to, even feel I need to. I can move on too quickly to Easter, to hope. This can be a disadvantage. Does God have something to show me in the darkness? How do I sit and be present in the desert, the place of darkness and anxiety with my loved ones? Hope is good, and we can find God there, but can we also find him in the darkness?