Yesterday was the darkest day of the year –meaning that moving forward, each day will be a little lighter for a little longer than the ones before. I think that’s what healing feels like. While the air is cold and the sun is still setting before you leave your office, you don’t always notice the light chipping away at the darkness –but then suddenly it’s 7 o’clock in June and the sun hangs high. The extra moments of light each day aren’t tangible, but over time, the weight of winter lifts.

Winter solstice aside, yesterday wasn’t the darkest day of my year –but I remember the one that was. And while I haven’t noticed each day to be a bit brighter than the last, six months later I’ve seen light overtaking the darkness all the same. I heard it said last weekend that “in the depths of the darkness, the light becomes precious to us” and I’ve seen it to be true. When I was jobless, planless, hopeless, I spent a lot of time reading my Bible –not because I’m extra-disciplined, but because I didn’t have anything else to do. It was in the darkness of my pain, and even my own thoughts, that I saw God’s Word to be a light to my path, and Jesus, the light of life.

I’m reminded this Advent that “a day will come when we don’t need the sun,” when the light will so completely overcome the darkness and all will truly be well. Revelation 21 talks about a city “that has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the lamb.” On our darkest days, we can trust that someday there will be no night for those in Him, the light of the world. That the Light is slowly taking over, and the darkness will not overcome it.