Miron Ministries » Non-fiction » When Darkness Surrounds You

When Darkness Surrounds You

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by: Dr. Sharon Schuetz Total views: 19 Word Count: 978 Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 Time: 5:02 AM 48 comments

I remember as a little girl when we traveled we did as much of it as possible at night. It was cooler and cars didn't have air-conditioning back then. And there weren't as many arguments in the backseat. My mother and father shared the front seat with my little brother and sister and the other four of us were crammed in the back lying all over each other with our huge German shepherd, Rowdy, hanging his dripping tongue over the seat in the back of the station wagon.

 I was often the last one to drift off. I would wait until the others were asleep and I would ask my dad questions until I couldn't stay awake. Eventually, I learned to recognize the difference between truck lights and car lights. At one point, I could even tell what kind of car was coming toward us by its headlights and when a train was coming.

I could see the trains very far away and it thrilled me to be able to tell dad about the trains with such great accuracy. I asked him why the train light was so much brighter than those on the cars and trucks were. He told me that trains were so much more powerful than the smaller vehicles and they needed more light to see far enough ahead to travel safely.

One day while I traveling with my dad I realized that during the day, I couldn't see the trains as far off. It seemed that their lights weren't shining as bright. In fact, I could hardly tell that it was on. I noticed that I could see the train before I could see the light. Daddy explained why that light wasn't bright in the daytime. There was no night to make it shine.

As Christian women, we can be doing fine; everything is just great in our corner of the world. Blessings seem to be flowing into our lives. Then the bottom falls out and nothing seems to be going right. The difference is like day and night. The Lord said that it rains on the just and the unjust. He asked us if the world came against Him why would we expect it to be different for those that loved Him. He gave us His Word as the light to shine in front of us in the world of darkness. He said His Word was "a lamp to my [our] feet, and a light to my [our] path" (Psalms 119-105).

Today's Christian woman can be like that train. The train still has it light on during the day. However, we should be the brightest at night. When we hide God's word in our heart, His light shines through us in every circumstance. When everything is going right, the Word, living in us in is shining. It goes before us clearly revealing the tracks God has laid out for our lives, and shining brightly for others who need it. Though it may not show up as bright as it does when we're surrounded by darkness.

When darkness presses in on us, and it appears that we may stumble and fall, we have His Word to reveal the path ahead and show us the direction we should go. Unlike the world, our knowledge that God is with us, and His Word buried in our hearts, helps us keep our eyes are on our heavenly journey and not stray when things go wrong.

Lost women everywhere are looking for something that shines bright and stands out in the darkness. When we're moving on with the love, joy, and peace of God shining brightly through us, we can be a beacon of hope. Like that train, we will be visible for a great distance ahead. The darker it is around us the brighter our light will shine.

My husband compares God's Word to the white stripes in the center of the highway on one of our dark, soupy, foggy Houston mornings. Sometimes the fog is so dense we can't see the taillights on the car in front of us until we're right up on it and it's hard to be sure that we're in our lane. By keeping our eyes on the white stripes and carefully watching the limited visibility offered by our headlights, we can arrive safely at our destination.

When we rely on God's Word in this dark, soupy foggy world we live in, we have the same assurance that we will arrive safely at the destination God has planned for our lives.