Light and Darkness

All I have done this week is complain. I have to work 6 out of the 7 days, at 530am… Im tired, Im cranky and then I get aggrevated at the kids for nothing more than asking for the water in the car like a broken record despite me telling them I cant reach it now because I am driving. I have not been writing down my gifts or counting my graces enough. So it appears dark in my little world that is not that dark. Then I get mad at myself for the lack of appreciation when I think the world’s darkness. It overwhelmes. I feel defeated to combat child slavery and I haven’t tried. So clicking on this lady’s blog and reading her post this week could not have come at a more perfect time. It reminds me of John 1: 5 "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it" and 1 John 1:5 "God is light and in him is no darkness at all" See the parallel here. Scripture is Gods word so I shouldn’t find it so surprising the both John and 1 John’s 1^st chapter, 5^th verse correlate so nicely. God is only light and the darkness (terrible things in me and the world) can never overtake Him. So enjoy this lady’s blog post below if you too ever get smothered by these thoughts..

The #IFGathering met this past weekend in Austin, TX: throngs of believers raising their arms, holding up the heavens. I attended last year but this year found me at home, big with child, feeling her hiccup in my abdomen and the slide of her tiny foot against the roof of my belly.
I sat at home and I read about South Sudan, and the fighters who are carrying out a “month of rape” including children and the elderly. Children. Grandparents. Mothers. It’s not even war anymore, it’s just hatred.
And this happening while on the other side of the world we’re gathering to worship the Lord, our children tucked under their down comforters, and safe in our wombs, and my mind goes numb.
I just stare at the news article, not able to comprehend how people made in God’s image can become such vessels of terror and wickedness. It’s the same numb I felt standing in Rwanda’s Genocide Museum right before I fled to the rose garden, a monk passing me, murmuring and the whole world colliding. A world of sinners and saints and the God who made them all. I remember seeing a rose, severed, on the dirt, and it was still blooming.
How do we bloom in the midst of suffering?
How do we exhibit hope in the midst of despair?
Jefferson Bethke talks about this in his latest video, Darkness Is Losing.
He says justice is this: throwing the lasso around heaven and pulling it to earth.
Justice is the church’s mission.
Because our King is risen.
Darkness is losing, Jefferson says.
We are agents of reconciliation, restoring the world to its rightful, holy, beautiful, every baby-being-fed state.
I think of The Lulu Tree-of the four mothers from the slum who started training to become hairdressers and tailors this past week. I think of what our staff mama, Esther, said about them, the day school started:

“I was moving from one school to another paying tuition. I was excited seeing the mamas’ faces on their first day at school. I first went to Jenifer’s school; she showed up carrying a school bag; was looking so fresh she didn’t stop smiling until she went to class. I then headed to the beauty training saloon in kibuye. Madina was already there in a jovial mood. Today I went so early before every one went to school and gave them their sugar,soap and money and we prayed together for LULU and every one rushed to school. AM SO EXCITED on what the Lord is doing.”

I think of what Katie Davis is doing. I think of all the beautiful people who are being light and even though I cry out to God, Why? How can you let these things happen? How can you just watch the world suffer?
I know He isn’t. He isn’t just watching. He is doing. Through us.
Justice happens through our hands and our feet and our eyes and our tithings every day. Justice is in the way we speak to our children, in the way we treat the mailman or the grocery clerk; justice happens every time we decide NOT to gossip about our neighbor or to joke at someone else’s suspense. Justice is the meal you make for the family down the street, it is the toys you give away with your kids, it is the prayers you plead. It is the lies you don’t tell. It is the way you choose not to lust and always to love.
Justice is our calling, church.
One night I was so undone, I went for a walk beneath the stars and cried out to God for all of the awful. All of the young kids getting addicted to porn and all of the hurts and the sins and the confusion. And I heard the Lord say, “Emily-do not fight darkness with darkness, but with light.”
Because I was acting out of fear. And fear is darkness.
Hope is light.
And my greatest prayer is that my life be light.
We cannot stop the war in South Sudan. But we can stop the wars in our homes and in our hearts.
I think of the throngs of worshipers gathered this past weekend in Austin, and my biggest prayer for us church is that we not be distracted-by the bright lights or by the names or even by the worship music. That we not be distracted from the true reason we gather together: to be commissioned.
We don’t become disciples so we can simply keep sitting in our pews every Sunday. No, we become disciples so we might take up our crosses and daily follow Jesus. To go forth, and make disciples. To wash one another’s feet. To act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
And to sin no more.
- emily t. wierenga