Light Shines in Darkness

Do you ever feel like there’s evil creeping up on you? Like a flood is going to rush for 40 days and 40 nights and take over your heart and mind?

Sometimes I do.

Most of the time I’m not really a believer. Sure, intellectually I assent to the things that I profess to believe. But that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, some days I can’t believe.

In fact, most days, if I’m honest.

But then, in spite of the creeping evil that seeks me out, trying to overwhelm me and turn me into something I’m not, I see a brief glimmer of hope. And that small hope sustains me even when I can’t believe.

Maybe that’s why I resonate so strongly with passages like John 1:5, “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out.” (Contemporary English Version).

I struggle with depression. It’s just the truth. I never quite know how to describe it to someone without this problem. But darkness is the best analogy I can come up with. I think alternative country artist Bonnie “Prince” Billy captures it beautifully in his lyrics:

“But could you see its opposition
Comes rising up sometimes?
That its dreadful end-position
Comes blacking in my mind

[Chorus]
And that I see a darkness
And that I see a darkness
And that I see a darkness
And that I see a darkness
And did you know how much I love you
Is a hope that somehow you
Can save me from this darkness?”

I love this song because it captures what it’s like to struggle with depression so beautifully. You can’t control it. Sometimes it just comes like a gray cloud on a sunny day, blacking out any golden rays that might reach you.

And when you get into a depressive spell, it can be hard to find motivation to do most things. You feel tired. You feel like no matter what you do it won’t be good enough. You feel like there’s no point in anything.

In the worst case scenario, you might feel like your life isn’t worth living and that your friends and family would be better off without you.

I’ve never felt the latter to a point that it would cause me to take any self-harming or life-threatening action, but I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about it.

Why am I writing this? I’m not too sure. In fact, I don’t really feel depressed right now.

Maybe it’s a way of telling myself, when those dark, depressive times come, that there is a still a light that shines in the darkness, and that the darkness has not extinguished it.

No matter how dark the night, or how cloudy the day, the darkness can’t prevail.

Sometimes all it takes is one ray of sunshine.

And no, Rachel, Elijah, and Micaiah, it’s not ever your fault. Sometimes you are just the sunshine I need to break me out of my dark prison.

I love you.

Because of you, the darkness won’t overcome my inner light.