The Light Shines in the Darkness

Through my photography, drawing, and writing, I continually draw closer to God. I recently started writing in three journals. By far, the one that has the most writing in it is the one in which I write down my thoughts and things I am learning about God. I bought a 5 subject notebook for this journal two and a half weeks ago, and I am already on the third subject. I write letters to Him. I write down everything I feel, prayers, my frustrations… my truth.

It is through my expressions that I keep coming back to the truth of my life testimony. Many people who have met me through the years know that I have struggled and overcome tremendous odds to get to where I am. Many of these people only see the surface parts of my story- the homelessness, the struggles with anxiety- but so many do not know the deepest and darkest points of my life.

Something that has confused many people is the fact that somebody could go through so much and still be fighting. It’s not by my own strength, that’s for sure. If it was only by own strength, I would have been gone many years ago.

One of my favorite quotes that come to my mind during times when I feel as if I am in a pit is this one:

“There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still.” –Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom is well-known for helping many Jews escape the Holocaust. Something that hit me is that people sometimes deny that the Holocaust ever occurred. And it also hit me recently that maybe people do not want to believe that the most unimaginably painful things in life actually happen or that bad things are still happening today, because they do not want to believe it. They’d rather believe it is a lie than believe that bad things happen.

During my recent hospitalization, I was drawing a sunset in order to alleviate my stress. Sunrises and sunsets have always brought tremendous relief to me… just the absolute beauty of God’s creation. I sat at a table, drawing the sunset and someone came up behind me and looked at it. They said “Wow… I never would have believed it if I didn’t see it in front of my own two eyes.”

It hit me today that so many people in our world are like that with our faith in God. Many people assume that if they cannot see God with their own physical eyes, then He must not be there. But I can tell you the truth in the statement that nothing is impossible with God. Our society runs on what is seen. Just think about it. Everywhere we go, we are bombarded by technology, whether televisions, computers, or phones. Face to face conversations are now done between people miles away through applications like Skype. And the quicker our society becomes, the more we lose the ability to see the beauty in the mundane- the beauty in the simplest of things. The things that we see in technology are becoming so complex while the things that have remained the same for thousands of years, like the sun rising are ignored. 

Something that is so powerful for me to think about is that the love of God never changes. Who He is has never changed, even with all of the advances in our society and our world. He is still the same loving, gentle, caring and just God He was in ancient times.

I have spent quite a few nights recently outside just staring up at the stars. The first night I did this was a few weeks ago and I couldn’t remember the last time I had stargazed. As I looked up at the stars, I saw the North Star… you know, the brightest star of them all. As I laid there on the lounge chair, the sky was overcome with clouds. I started to lose sight of the other stars, but even through the fog, I always saw the North Star. Through that simple experience that lasted less than ten minutes, God told me that even when my world becomes cloudy and there is so much fog that I cannot see what is in front of me, He is always going to be there, guiding me and lighting my path.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations;

 I will be exalted in the earth.” 
-Psalm 46:10 (KJV)

God has blessed me with so many ways to express myself as I heal and as I draw closer to Him. As I draw closer to Him, I continually go back to the truth of my past. That's because God is the source of Truth. For as long as evil exists, there will be people who doubt it. But my hope and prayer is that more people see how God can transform that evil into good.

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” –Romans 12:21

It is in those deepest and darkest moments in our lives when we realize the absolute truth that there truly is no pit in this world, no amount of evil, in this world that can silence our God or separate us from God’s love.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, 

nor life, nor angels, 

nor principalities, nor powers, 

nor things present, nor things to come, 

Nor height, nor depth, 

nor any other creature, 

shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

–Romans 8:38-39 (KJV)