Light Breaking Through...
This season carries with it both the beautiful and the broken. Advent means an intimate closeness with our Emmanuel that seems so much more prevalent than any other time of year. Yet it also means coming face to face with the brokenness of the world and with grief that is physically crushing, emotionally draining and can make even the strongest believer question God's purposes.
In having to truly be intentional about creating margin in my life this time of year to reflect on both the beautiful and the broken, I am reminded that our greatest comfort is hope beyond simply a life well lived -- its eternal life with our Savior. These are NOT platitudes or wishful thinking, praise God! There is a place where wretched words like cancer, addiction, depression, infant loss, and symptoms of this broken world are healed. Completely. Fully. Forever. This is where the light breaks through...
Growth comes by being guided by the light of Jesus. Jesus is as Psalm 119:105 “a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” When Jesus has our hearts, it is no longer the darkness of our circumstances that guides us and defines us, it is Him.
2019 has been one of growth for me. Hard admissions and resolutions have been faced and I've worked through them with some resistance, yet I know that it will make this season of Advent all the sweeter. Because when we face the realities of the darkness, the light breaking through isn't just warm and fuzzy feelings of Christmastime. It is clearly seeing His all-sufficiency and knowing we really have been given all that we need in Him. He really is "El Shaddai" - the God who is Enough.
December 4, 2011 holds with it both darkness and light. Celebrating Advent, along with the anniversary of my Ellanie's death this time of year is as what Amy Carmichael describes as "walking over moonless seas." "It is when the sea is moonless that the Lord has become my light."
Just as the light of the sun warms us and creates a place of peace… Jesus, the Light, brings us to a place of peace. I can say confidently, after 8 years, I am in a place of peace. We gain peace because the veil of darkness is lifted and the path through life and to our eternal home is made clear. He makes us secure and safe in Him when we know that this world, along with all of its pain and sorrow is not our home.
His light illuminates a forever perspective in our hearts that keeps us anxiously waiting to see our children again, and more importantly, to see Him.
When light breaks through… beauty and joy can come from pain. HE is the light in which you see everything. Mountains and valleys, oceans and rivers, clear skies and even storms.
Nothing is the same again when the light breaks through. Everything looks different in the light of Christ!
His light helps us bear the sorrows of darkness. It is a soft glow that comforts in a lonely corner of darkness after devastating loss. It is a lamp to our troubled path.
When enduring the loss I thought would consume me, it seemed that all the lights had gone out. But truly, for me, on December 4, 2011, the light of Heaven, lit up my life, beckoning me into hope that’s everlasting and joy that’s eternal.
Entering into this season of hope with an expectant heart... praising Him for the moonless seas and light breaking through the darkness.
