God saw that the light was good… (Genesis 1:4).

Light is good.

Have you ever been in complete darkness?  I mean, where it’s so dark that you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face?

It’s disturbing.

When I was nineteen, I lived in a little cabin in the woods.

No, really.

One night, I left a friend’s house to return home.  It was night, and I didn’t have a flashlight because I hadn’t planned to stay so late and because I was new to the woods and unfamiliar with real darkness and because I was nineteen and living on my own for the first time and my mom wasn’t there to tell me to take a flashlight.  My cabin was about 100 yards through the trees.  With light, maybe two minutes.  In the dark, fifteen of the most harrowing minutes of my life.

Confusion

Lonliness

Wrong Turns

Fear

Bad Choices

Despair

I felt it all as I stumbled through the darkness, looking for home.

I didn’t appreciate the spiritual metaphor at the time, because, well, I thought I was about to be eaten.  But I’m sure you get it.

The smallest checkout-counter keychain flashlight would have transformed that darkness…

Hey, whaddaya say we all hold hands and sing, “This Little Light of Mine?”

OK, well, maybe next time.

Happy Friday, Beloved.