I struggle to get up. I reach and reach. I push. And yet, for all my struggle, my face is pushed to the ground. My core held in place by the world. My arms locked by chains. My ankles held by anchors.
I cry out. I scream.
"This darkness, this weight is overwhelming!"
The darkness seems to answer my plea. It taunts. It claws at my mind, and it streaks my tears. Darkness slides down my face.
"YHWH! Jehovah! Jesus Christ! Please take this weight from me! Make the darkness go away. I can't stand it any more! I am drowning in darkness!!"
Realizing that there is nothing more I can do and nothing more to say, I wish my life were over. My life must end, in order for this darkness and weight to be lifted.
A breeze floats into my darkness. I wonder where it comes from. I wonder at its origins.
It smells like the air after it rains. It smells like a breeze coming off the ocean. It smells like chocolate chip cookies baking. It smells like the flowers that sit on my window sill....
The darkness does not lift, but no longer do I feel alone. Someone must be coming. Someone must have broken through the darkness.
I can see something. Far, far away in the distance. A speck. I had forgotten my eyes were even open. In this darkness, nothing can be truly seen.
It grows a little brighter and a little larger. The speck is light. It is so far away, but there it is.
Someone is coming. Someone has broken my darkness. I will be rescued. This weight will not be here forever. I am no longer surrounded by darkness.
But the darkness is far more cunning than that. It knows that this light fills me with hope, and so it causes the weight to be heavier and whispers lies into my heart. It swears that I will never be freed. It promises that anchors will always be tied to my feet. It sneers that light is just an illusion.
But the light persists. It is steady and unwavering.
I stare at it, begging it to come closer, but it doesn't move.
It is steady. It does not flicker.
As the darkness whispers and scratches at my heart with the barbed wire it has planted in me since I was a child, the light persists. My eyes never leave the light, and the light does not go away.
I am reminded that trials cause perseverance and perseverance brings character, and character, hope. So this darkness that beats upon me will bring hope. It will bring character. It will bring perseverance.
So I will wait. I will wait and suffer through the darkness. I will wait until the light frees me from this darkness and weight, knowing full well that it will probably come back some day. But the light will always persist.
"My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God . . . For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he wihthold from those whose walk is blameless."
