The light never comes how you expect it. -Ann Voskamp

No, it sure doesn’t, but it’s come for me enough that I know it’s coming. So many different ways it comes that I don’t even have an expectation of what it might or might not look like. Only that it will come. I’m a part of the multitudes of humans that walks in and out of darkness. Sometimes in and back out in the same breath. I wouldn’t say I live in the land of darkness, not the kind I’m refferring to anyway, but I do spend a lot of time there. You see, darkness is a part of living with chemical imbalance and wiring that gets crossed. Things like depression, anxiety, ADD, OCD, Bipolar and a host of other light snuffing names. These words that can take over the feely things. The ones that come from out of nowhere and take you from the top of the world into the dank dark dungeon in a matter of seconds. Sometimes there is a trigger and sometimes the heaviness, jitters, prickly cold just moves over with no reason at all. People that don’t understand think it can be fixed.

But it can’t.

If I had a formula for making it go away I surely would. Wouldn’t you?

For us it’s just the ebb and flow of life, and while I always prefer light over dark, the dark is familiar enough that I’m not scared. Maybe that’s why I am telling you this. Is there someone out there that gets trapped in the dark and finds the fingertips of fear closing in to take the breath away? Or just someone close to someone experiencing the dark. A loved one that wants their well-lit person back. Maybe they find fear when their person grows dim. I don’t blame them. I’m a l have a lot less sparkle when I’m dim. For the people that love the people that go dark, keep shining into them, onto them,

without expectation.

Jesus is coming.

He is.

But there’s no way to know when or how. Until He comes back for us we can find Him in the faces of the people that love and care for us. Sometimes that’s our people and sometimes it’s a complete stranger.

Sometimes complete strangers aren’t so strange. Sometimes, they are our people, too.

God’s gifts shine. They shine just enough to eventually guide us back to the atmosphere, navigate back to ground zero, status quo. Not too hot and not too cold but just right enough to go about the about of the day and the night, too.

Sometimes the dark gets worse in the dark.

In the meantime, until some light returns, don’t be afraid. You’re surely not the only one. Reach out and let someone you can trust know that you are in the dark ditch and sometimes they tell you they are in the dark ditch with you. Sucks. Not with you as in #hereforyoufriend, although they may be, but more #iminthedarkditchtoo. There are so many more of us than you think there are. Sadly.

Maybe that makes you feel a little worse but it can also offer you a focus. Begin to pray for them. Right out loud. Asking for mercy from this insidious disease of depression. It really should be called more than dis-ease. It’s so much more than a little uneasiness sometimes. Maybe nightmareous, or hellonearthia. I have heard people refer to depression as a place. It would be so cool if when you went there you actually went. So you could deal with it and not the million and one everyday things along with the horriblefeelingsia. Or yours may be whydoifeelyuckitis. Or darkfornogoodreasonitosis. But we don’t and so we write, or yoga, or eat, nap, sing, scream or…

Just put one foot in front of the other and know that no matter, this is not all there is. There is a Light. So brite that it would sear us if we looked directly at it. So brite than nothing can or will ever compare. And that Light, It’s coming for me. It’s coming for you if you let it. We will celebrate that it came to us once as a tiny baby and it will be back in a way we may least expect it.

And there is no-thing that can stop it when it comes.

Turns out, I don’t have to know what to expect. Just to expect that The Light sees me. The Light hears me. The Light loves me and The Light IS coming back for me.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Now, who wants cake?