in the dark.

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I love the darkness

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I love walking or jogging in the dark with the stars and silent streetlights.  I love exploring caves, climbing on a roof at night, or laying down on cold cement to ponder the night sky.

There is something about the dark that feels safe to me. Comforting. It’s the idea of being enveloped in something and blotted out of view. I feel invisible in the dark, and that feels good.

It’s hard to be seen.

Especially for my ever-loving-self wearied by the constant awareness of how I am seen. For as long as I can remember, I have diligently watched the reactions of the people around me. Reading into faces, tones, words, and trying to gauge how I can present myself in the most acceptable way. I have struggled on the journey to be myself rather than the image I portray.

We are miles down the trail but nowhere near the summit, friends.

I love the darkness.

I’m not sure when that started because as a kid, I slept with my closet light on and the door cracked open. Heck, I even sprinted to the bed after flipping off the light because you know, monsters.

Now, the dark feels like a refuge. A place to breathe, to sleep, to pause. To pretend the rest of the world does not exist. To pretend life is as peaceful and beautiful as it appears in the starlight.

A place where you cannot see me and I cannot see you.

This feels safe…for awhile.

I’m learning a painful truth in this season of pandemic-quarantine-isolation-stay-at-home-national-emergency. Ready?

We are not designed to live in the dark.

(please don’t roll your eyes, I know I’m the only one who JUST figured this out).

I crave acceptance, affection, and unconditional love. I have tried my best to be seen in a way that will provide these commodities. The problem with my efforts is this:

The only parts of me that are able to receive said commodities are the parts that I allow to be exposed. The parts of me kept hidden in the dark will never experience the miracle of being truly, extravagantly loved. 

In the dark I will continue to long, hunger, and starve to be seen. Truly seen.

In the incredible book “The Soul of Shame,” Curt Thompson writes that we are all storytellers. We are all longing, searching, seeking, someone who wants to hear us tell our story.

To really listen, to hear, to see us for all that we are.

So while the dark may seem safe, it is anything but true.

I can hide from myself and hide from you, but there is One who sees my soul.

I am finding a desperation in this season to encounter my Abba with an intensity I have not experienced before. The noise in my corner of the world has both increased and decreased in pandemic-land. I cannot pretend away this reality. I am needy in too many ways. Shaken in vulnerable places. And I am brought to my knees, not to simply “pray” but to pour out my heart and my tears.

In the dark, I need to be seen.

I need Him to envelope me, because the darkness will not hold my soul in a safe embrace.

I see the messiest parts of myself and pretending in the dark is no longer enough. I cannot present the image to those around me because there is no one to see. Nothing but social media, phone calls, and video chat. Showing up at work to be seen, but only with the parts of myself that are appropriate for that setting.  

I am lonely and I know I am not alone.

We are not designed to live in the dark. We are designed to be seen, and to see each other.

Friend, do you know that your soul is seen? That here, in the madness of 2020, you are not invisible? There is One who sees you in your little corner of the world and knows the state of your life, your family, your workplace, and your soul. You are not alone, unheard, unseen, or unloved.

There is safety for my soul in the presence of a good God in the middle of a bad season. I can sit on my living room floor in the morning sunlight or the cold cement at night and I can rest in the truth that I am known and loved, no matter what this crazy future holds.

I hold this truth tightly, desperately.

I am inviting the light. Inviting exposure to the parts of my heart that cry out to be seen, to be loved. If I cannot do that with others in person, I can sure as hell do it with the God who refuses to be confined by physical boundaries. He sees me.

I will find my refuge enveloped in the light, though the dark endures around me and the storm rages inside me. 

Will you join me?

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

    the night is bright as the day,

    for darkness is as light with you.

(Psalm 139:7-12)

For he will hide me in his shelter

    in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

    he will lift me high upon a rock.

(Psalm 27:5)

Blessed be the Lord,

    for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me

    when I was in a besieged city.

I had said in my alarm,

 “I am cut off from your sight.”

But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy

    when I cried to you for help.

(Psalm 31:21-22)