Mourning into Morning, Darkness into Light, Fear into Peace

I was not going to blog tonight, but I just had quite possibly one of the most incredible God moments in my life. It was way too good not to share.

I spent the past hour or so outside gazing up at the stars. When I first got outside, the sky was extremely cloudy to the point that I could not see any stars. Regardless, I put on my Pandora playlist.

After playing a few songs, “Deliver Me” by David Crowder Band came on. This has been one of my favorite songs for many years. Every time I hear the song, I have always listened to it as a prayer.

Midway through the song, the clouds opened up. The clouds started moving and one by one, the stars came into view.

As this was happening, I was listening to these words:

“All of my life I’ve been in hiding wishing there was someone just like You. Now that You’re here, now that I’ve found You, I know that You’re the One to pull me through.”

All of a sudden, a ton of things made sense. Just as the fog and clouds were taken away, clarity was brought into my mind.

Nights have always been the worst and lately, my physical symptoms and anxiety have been the worst at night.

To me, ever since I was a young child, I always assimilated night with darkness and evil and morning with light and joy. Nights were always full of the worst things imaginable. I had to listen to arguments, yelling, and fighting during the night. It was at night that I found out about my oldest brother’s suicide. As a teenager alone at home, I spent countless nights trying to sleep but having tremendous fears about the past. I prayed every night for each of my family members until I finally fell asleep. It was at night that I have been woken up to police. One time I woke up extremely scared because I saw flashlights through my bedroom window. Honestly most of my memories of my childhood and somewhat throughout growing up were at night. Being in nature has brought back some of the peaceful moments I do have of being a child being in the forest behind the home I grew up in. It was on a rock that I used to think of as a sofa that I first started journaling.

There is a reason that I have an “obsession” with sunsets and sunrises. It is because every morning, my anxiety is replaced by a sense of peace and joy almost as soon as the light peaks through my window. I have spent so many nights just waiting for morning to come. I prayed so many nights that morning would come quicker. And sometimes it seemed like morning did not come soon enough. But God has always pulled me through those nights and the darkness.

Somewhere between the clouds drifting away to bring clarity to the darkness of the sky tonight and the words of “Deliver Me” flowing through my ears, I realized that God is truly delivering me. I realized that slowly but surely God is truly helping bring the peace I feel in the morning into the darkness of night. I felt more at peace tonight than I have at night in so long.

The last time I could remember feeling this kind of peace during nighttime was actually when I was flying from my home town after spending a week with my family for the holidays this year and then coming back to my new home. I had never flown before at night, or at least from what I could remember. I had flown a few red-eye flights when I was younger and I visited Arizona, but I had slept through those flights.

I flew on New Years Eve this year and to be honest, I wondered what in the world I had been thinking when I booked a flight on New Year’s Eve. I do not even know why I felt this huge urge to make sure I had a window seat on both flights, something I have not done on all of my trips. But there was something incredibly magical about that night. I literally had my eyes glued to the window the entire three hours. As my fellow travelers were almost all sleeping, I was listening to music (yes, of course).

And at one point, the song “Walk on the Water” by Britt Nicole came on. There was complete darkness outside. I could not even see the horizon during that moment. And it hit me that I was thousands of feet in the air. A tremendous amount of fear came over me. I just felt like I was floating, in the middle of the unknown. And then, these words came into my ears…

“When you take that first step

Into the unknown

You know that He won’t let you go.”

God spoke to me really clearly through those words and my experience with the unknown right outside the airplane window. My anxiety turned into peace and something told me that there was more to this situation than just this one night, that I was beginning a new journey. Was it coincidence that this all happened on a night known for huge transformation into a new year? I do not think so.

I wanted to write everything down, so I grabbed a little piece of paper from my backpack and started writing everything down that I was experiencing. The man who was sitting next to me asked me what I was writing. I told him about my experience and how God has spoken to me through the song and the darkness.

He handed me two magnets, which I have in my apartment on my refrigerator. The magnets each have a Bible verse on them and it hit me as I am writing this that one of those Bible verses is the same exact verse that my mom texted me this morning. God’s timing is perfect.

That verse is this:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

As I am writing this, God is revealing the profound impact and truth of these words in my life throughout the past few weeks since I began this healing journey.

When I gaze up at the stars, I am immediately brought back to those moments in the airplane and no matter how bad my day was, no matter how high my anxiety is or what memories are competing for my mind’s attention, my body, mind, soul and spirit are overcome with peace and joy in the middle of the darkness. This is something I have been praying for my entire life.

I can try to explain it in words, which I have done in this post, but I do not know if these words do justice to the miracle that has happened tonight and throughout the past few weeks.