Can God Find You In Your Dark Place?

Originally published Tuesday, 23 April 2013.

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? To be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute-you’re already there waiting! Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!” It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you. Psalm 139:7-12 (MSG)

I crawled into bed and pulled the duvet over my head.  

I felt my husband reach out and hug me. 

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“I don’t even want to be here,” I said.

“Where do you want to be?” he enquired, and drew me closer, as I thought about all the places I’d rather be. 

How I’d rather be in a place where my husband didn’t have cancer. Or a place where we weren’t being told we have 0% chance of conceiving a child naturally. How I’d rather be spending the weekend somewhere beautiful rather than sitting at my home with a husband recovering from chemo.

But I wasn’t living any of those dreams. 

I was right here in the midst of a life that is full of pain and sickness and disappointments.

I was in a dark place.

I was in a place light didn’t penetrate and I couldn’t see hope. 

Maybe you’ve been there before? Maybe your circumstances were different but your feelings were the same?

Despair, loneliness, anguish, hopelessness – just a few of the feelings that characterize dark places. 

As I lay under the duvet my husband started to move the duvet off my head and let little shards of light in, he started to speak hope to my heart.

You might not have a husband that crawls into your dark place but you do have a God who does. 

God will find you in your dark place.

God doesn’t leave you because you’re feeling down or hopeless or desperate. (Tweet this)

When you’re in a dark place, God crawls into the darkness with you, tells you He’s with you, and then he holds you till hope begins stirring in your soul.

God gently exposes your dark places to his light. 

And somehow, instead of baring more pain, heartache and broken dreams, God’s light reveals his plans to take care of you, to never abandon you, and to give you the future you hope for. 

As you struggle to see through the dark you notice that those promises have been there all along, that the darkness was only hiding them. 

The promises God whispers in the light don’t change when the sun sets. (Tweet this)

And you realize that you are still in the midst of a life that is full of pain and sickness and disappointments but that there is one greater than all of these who will not leave you to handle them on your own.

Prayer: God, come and shine light in my dark places. Help me to remember the promises you gave me in the light so I can see you in the dark. Thank you that my feelings don’t change who you are.

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