I used to close my eyes
To what stirred under my bed,
Now they’re open wide
To the monsters in my head.
Instead of claws, they whisper lies
Sinking fear in quiet steps,
So I will fight in the light
‘Til I give my final breath.-Run River North, Growing Up
These words caught my attention several days ago, when I heard them for the first time. As the lines trickled into my thoughts, I was a child again, and then my entire existence since childhood came into view. What stirred me the most though was the reminder of the stance I’ve tried to choose in life. Fighting in the light, for the light, even in the times when darkness shrouds everything.
Sarah Clarkson, a writer who has spoken endlessly to my own heart, shared recently about her thoughts on fear and innocence. As I read her words contrasting the two, I realized how much the light I’ve always fought for is encapsulated in innocence as she described it: a trust in the love that holds us.
God – love itself – holds us.
Lately I’ve been in an ongoing battle between trusting that love and wanting to guard myself against it. When darkness gets loud enough and brutal enough, it can be hard to believe this perfect love can actually be trusted. And if it can’t, then… what? What’s left? Certainly not that restful innocence and life-giving light I’ve been fighting for.
In her remarkable book, This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson proposes an antidote to the disintegration the pain of life can tempt us towards:
“…in the glimpses of beauty that come to us in our darkness, we witness not just the kindness of God but the nature of reality, and it is lovely.”
-This Beautiful Truth
God’s goodness, who He is – the perfection of love, is on display in a million different ways. Even if the beauty He touches us with only breaks through the darkness we endure in little speckles, or for fleeting seconds, it is there. It is our reminder of the truest of truth.
Why is it so hard to reside in that truth?
“Isn’t it easier for us to believe that we are cursed than that we are blessed?” asks Henri Nouwen in his book Life of the Beloved. I would answer a resounding yes. It is easier to see all my pain than to look at my grand gift of being beloved by God.
My new favorite novel (because it’s the one I’ve most recently finished), speaks to this as well:
“Life’s not this little bit of existence you’re plodding through now, it’s the whole thing, all that is. It’s the breath of God, words that he spoke, a song, a stream of white light that goes back to him again.
-Elizabeth Goudge The Castle on the Hill
I’m realizing that this battle to live in the light, is a battle against my own self; a battle against dwelling in reality. It is easier to believe all of the pain and all of the darkness because, ultimately, doing so feeds my own pride. If I only give weight to the ugliness of life, then I can live avenged for all my suffering. Or so it seems.
Really though, what I often feel is all-encompassing reality is only a piece of it. And I am not living freed of my suffering; I’m living submerged in it.
The light -filled freedom I long for is in my rightful dwelling place in that Perfect Love; a love so grand that even when I am distrustfully guarding myself, I am still being held by it.
That is why every time I am moved by a glimpse of the beautiful, I can trust He knows that my tender heart is crying out for Him. And when those moments come, I can freely revel in them; because they are a gracious taste of the dwelling place I was made for.
