Darkest Corners
“Open up, let the light in.”
I originally wrote this blog in 2014…almost ten years ago! Where has the time gone? So much has changed in my life and all around me, but some things remain. One thing that has remained is God’s patience with me and His pursuit of me. In many ways, I am still working through some of those same dark corners and perhaps I always will be. I am encouraged that I’m not where I used to be and yet, I’m not nearly where I want to be. In light of that, I’m sharing this post with you in hopes that you might let a little light in this morning.
Dark corners. Mine are years of abuse, neglect, fear, and shame. Those dark corners are embedded into who I am. I call them my “dark, twisty places” inspired by Meredith on Grey’s Anatomy.
Those corners are my mornings when I wake up oddly distant from those around me. Those are my feelings of fear and distance when someone wants to love me. Those are my thoughts of unworthiness and fear of abandonment when someone pursues me. These are the walls I have built up to keep my heart from being shattered like it was so frequently in my childhood. This is the arm’s length I keep even those closest to me, out of fear of being hurt. These are my most vulnerable secrets, my darkest memories, and my years of pain.
I don’t know who is reading this right now. I don’t know if you even have “dark, twisty places” or dark corners, but I do. They are always things that I have had the hardest time talking about, I have had the most fights with, and I have always lost to. However, this morning, victory is mine…I have let the light in.
Thank you, Father, for chasing me into the darkest corners of myself.
Sometimes, we think that the only time God chases us is when we try and hide from our sin like Adam and Eve in the garden. When we try to hide from the consequences of laziness, irresponsibility, infidelity, insecurity, abandonment….the list goes on. What we don’t realize is that sometimes the hardest thing for us to allow God into is ourselves. We put on that Christian face that smiles and deals with everything with gratitude. We show grace, mercy, compassion, and love. We let God steer us from path to path and we claim that we are fully surrendered. Surrender is not a one time thing. It’s an every day choice, commitment. And sometimes, the hardest thing to surrender is our dark corners. We are held by the lies that they are unfixable or forever a part of who we are. Maybe we are just overwhelmed or scared or exhausted from the work of healing. But God chases us into even the darkest corners of ourselves and in those places, His light shines the brightest.
He loves pursuing us but He cannot pursue us half-heartedly. He is a God who desires ALL of us…even our dark, twisty places. Even the spots that we have yet to show to another person or maybe even confronted ourselves. Sometimes, when we allow Him to reach our dark corners, He reveals things we didn’t know were broken. How beautiful. When Redemption reaches for us, it reaches for all of us. There is no corner too dark, no place too hard, for our Savior to light up with His constant and never-ending grace, mercy, and unconditional love.
What are your dark, twisty places? What is hiding in your dark corners? I dare you to open up. Come out of hiding. Let the light in.
This is the song that originally inspired this blog post all those years ago. It has been so healing for me and I have returned to it many times over the years.
