It's the time of the year when the darkness challenges us. It seems things always get tougher in winter- for everyone. The lack of daylight adds to the depression. I have a theory that God gives us Easter, Jesus dies for our sins, we feel free and breathe in summer's whirlwind of warmth and light. God gives us all that time, all that light, but eventually, it gets darker, we don't have the fireworks, the sunlight, the warm outdoor evenings. We only have each other, huddled tightly together in artificially lit rooms, darkness surrounds us outside. The environment does not provide us with external light- all we have is each other- we have to make our own light. I think sometimes that it's half a test, to see if we can use our human selves to create light, and half a reminder that we need Jesus, we need the birth of the messiah, we need Emmanuel- God with us- to bring us light, to bring light into our hearts to make our own light. Usually, by Christmas, we've been surrounded by darkness long enough to appreciate our need for Him, we've been hit hard enough. But, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we often wait inside the depths of December, hoping we'll make it until we find Emmanuel, sometimes unfaithfully worrying He won't be enough when He comes, hoping we'll pull through.
Last year around this time I listened to a song by Over the Rhine, "we're gonna pull through" on repeat. I had a lot going on last winter- My mother trying to pull through cancer, a situation in which I hoped that a friendship (a few friendships, actually) could pull through without being too disfigured in the process.
On my drive home from work at night there's a part of the highway where all the fast food and store signs die out, there are no street lights or stoplights, only darkness over the black hills- you hit the top of one and you see lights of stores and houses far off in the distance- and before you, a gnarled, twisted old oak in front of Green thumb- some plant store that also sells ice cream and ski equipment. I don't really know what all they do- but I got my Christmas tree there. The point is- Green Thumb is a large wooden barn like building with a pitched roof and three small sort of steeples popping out of the top of the roof- they look like 3 warm, orange lanterns- a relief to the darkness of the night. I always look forward to seeing their welcoming beacons in the middle of the darkness- I look for them like I look for hope when my days darken. As I approached the hill on a dark frozen night in December, "We're gonna Pull Through" came onto my car stereo and Green thumb's lantern lights reminded me that there IS hope- no matter how cold and dark the winter seems, no matter how impossible it seems- that THIS time, we couldn't possibly make it- we always make it through. I thought of last December- of friendships and even a mother that seemed impossible to mend, to reconcile, that are now better than ever. And I cannot explain how or why we have pulled through all this darkness- it certainly wasn't for my own sight, I couldn't see through all that blackness, I just grabbed His hand and He pulled us through it, on into summer's light.
So another winter, some more challenges, but more joys, more questions of the future, how it could possibly make sense, how I could possibly know in less than a year what I should do next and how I should do it- It all seems impossible, so very unclear. I cannot see where I'm going, but I'm going to grab a hand in this darkness, I think you should grab a hand too, and friends, He's gonna pull us through
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