Sunlight and Shadow

Like most people, I have experienced both sunlight and shadow in my life. I have learned some very important lessons on how to thrive in either. Sunlit days are not so hard. But days filled with shadows can be exhausting. Those shadowy days definitely test my resolve, my courage and my resilience.

Shadowy days are filled with questions, with sadness, with trials in many forms. I survived such days, sometimes barely. But I did survive, and from there I can offer a witness to the utter and graceful faithfulness of God.

Shadowy days call to mind one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed . . .

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I have been cast down in my life, but never destroyed. Never in utter despair. Never forsaken by a loving God. I leave you today with the words of Bishop Steven Charleston.

I cannot take away what troubles you the most and I would not offer you easy answers to your hardest questions. Like you, I have been around long enough to know that sadness is a long distance runner and that healing is never a work of magic. All I can honestly offer is a witness, a shared moment of common sense experience, a reminder that life is far less fragile than we might imagine. We do survive. We heal. We reconcile. We do find an answer and we do change. Shadows cannot exist without sunlight, but sunlight can exist without shadows.