The Darkest, Most Impossible Night

Tonight, we celebrate the Winter Solstice. It is the darkest night of the year, the shortest day, where the light is the thinnest. We are nearing the end of the journey and we wait in hope for the dawn.

In the deepest, darkest night, we are as close as we will get to the light coming. We can taste it, sense it, know that it’s almost here.

Isn’t this true about many of the darkest moments of our lives? If we look back, aren’t many of those times the places where we are brought to our thinnest place, our deepest longing, and somehow we are met in that longing? It’s the random person at the grocery store who smiles your way as if they know how desolate life is right now. It’s the kindness of a stranger in the waiting room as you await a dreaded diagnosis. In the darkest places, the light seems to shine out.

I suppose this is the impossibility of light. The light that comes in Christ is impossible. We are not certain what it means for us, we are unable to fully know the height and depth of God’s love for us. But we trust that the light will come and be good.

So we wait on this darkest night. We long for the light of dawn to break through the shadows that surround our lives.

As I learn how to long with my whole heart in this moment each year, I’m struck by how much I’m able to trust in what seems impossible. As I stare out at the inky black sky, it is unfathomable that somehow light will shine out again. And yet, somehow, this deep darkness calls me into a place of joy and belonging, knowing that God is with us, dawning in our world to make all things new. Only in the darkness do I see this so clearly.

Peace in the darkness,

Seth