By Nancy Virden (c)2015

Where does darkness go when the lights turn on? Inside Seneca Caverns in western Ohio, our tour guide shut off all the lights. Thick blackness wrapped each of us in a cocoon; even my hand resting on my nose was indistinguishable.

Then someone, maybe the guide, turned on a flashlight. Its usually strong beam was almost engulfed by the vague shadows it created! It’s a strange sensation realizing this kind of coal-black cannot be expelled so easily. Still, at the precise point where the bulb glowed, darkness fled.

It’s a fruitless exercise to try to describe hopelessness because it’s neither concrete nor tangible. Without measurements or boundaries, it only is and becomes acutely real to the one caught in it.

Depression can smother the light of hope from a room and a mind. In the coal-black of despair, love’s radiance may seem to disappear completely. Yet for me, there has always been a lamp for my feet that never fades.

Some people in a depressive episode strive to experience a sense of calm oneness with the universe; however, I’m not referring to a feeling. Others may express a growing awareness or epiphany; I’m not describing a thought process. Many use the phrase “my faith” when trying to explain an inexplicable inner strength that pulls them through a difficult time. Still, I’m not portraying a faceless anomaly.

The Light that never fades is a person

As I deliberated suicide, he was there. The Light in my darkness did not present himself as a knight in shining armor with an instant rescue. He didn’t snap at me and tell me to get my life together. I did not go to Him with my anger, sorrow, or hopelessness. No, I sat in them, and He came to me. He simply reminded me he was there, stayed with me in the pit, and loved his suffering daughter.

His name is Jesus.

“Faith is the substance of what we cannot see,” it says in the Holy Bible (Hebrews 12:1). I believe what the Bible says about Jesus. “Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light” (Micah 7:8b).

As I struggled repeatedly to thrash my way out of this life, he was by my side. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed” (Psalm 34:17-19).

Another fadeless light, that old fuddy-duddy dust-covered book of presumed fiction and anti-science, perhaps sitting on your shelf, is loaded with explosive truth. The words bring life to the dead and the light of Jesus to the dark. God’s words never fail. Faith comes by hearing them.

Jesus is not a transient feeling, a fleeting thought, or a wishful belief system. He is, in reality, the King I know, and whom you can also meet.

-COMMENTS WELCOME

Today’s Helpful Word

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
John 12:45-46
“For when you see me, you are seeing the One who sent me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.” -Jesus

If you are feeling suicidal or concerned about someone who is, in the U.S., call 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. For a list of international suicide hotlines, go here.

If you are suicidal with a plan, immediately call 911 in the U.S. or go to your nearest emergency room; in the EU, call 112. (For other international emergency numbers, go here.) Hope and help are yours!

Always the Fight Ministries (ATFM) has been displaying compassion for those fighting mental illness, addiction, or abuse since 2012. Nancy is the founder and voice of ATFM and openly shares her emotional resurrection from despair. 

NOTE: Nancy is not a doctor or a mental health professional and speaks only from personal experience and observations. This website is not intended to substitute for professional mental or behavioral health care.

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