Afraid of the Dark

One of my best friend's son is 6 (let's call him Justin) and he is a bit advanced for his age.  One night I was laying in bed playing Scrabble, trying to distract my brain from my pregnancy sickness so that I could fall asleep, and I sent this friend a text asking how Justin's first day of school was.  This is how the next little bit of correspondence went,

The darkness in which Justin peered.

J- "It was asome Justin wrote this"
Me- "Glad you had fun!"
J- "This is Justin iam texting you"
Me- "Yes. I'm happy that you had a good day :)."
J- "Thx!!!"
J- "I am in the mists of that darkness" And he had attached this picture.
Me- "Does your momma know you got her phone?"

And she did know.

We continued our discussion until we agreed we were both tired.  But we set a date to play friend Scrabble that next day at 4:30 since, "I have a tite schedule I wake up for school at 6:45am and my mom pick me up at about 3:30pm they only time i probraly about 4:30pm."   So our date was set.

I share this to put a smile on your face, because kids are too funny.  What I find most interesting is that Justin, being 6, was in the "mists" of the darkness, and he was not afraid.

I was very afraid of the dark as a child.  I can remember thinking there were people under my bed that would grab my feet if I touched the floor.   And, for sure, there was something in my closet that was bound to get me if the door wasn't closed.  I would clutch my covers around my neck as if they had mighty powers to save me, while I sweat miserably.

I can also remember, in the darkness at night, while trying to fall asleep, asking Jesus over and over again to save me from Hell.  I was so afraid of life after death, the things I did not understand and it tormented me at night.  I look back and wonder why I never talked to my mom or dad about it.  Why did I wrestle with that fear and never give them an opportunity to shed some light on the topic?  I didn't know that the the right answer from a trusted friend can stop a questioning fear.

As an adult, I overcame the fear of believing in strange creatures or monsters under the bed, but overcoming the fear of the darkness in our heart is another issue.  I went through a course to work on me and found a greater sense of understanding about not feeling fear, unforgiveness, rejection, anxiety, pride, jealousy, and the list goes on.  I didn't completely rid myself of these feelings, because that just is not realistic, but I found a helpful path of processing them to allow them out as easily as they came in.  I learned to not give these feelings an opportunity to create harmful places inside my heart.

The real test came shortly after I finished the course.  I had taken a walk with my husband and we had pulled our oldest, who was 18 mos at the time, behind us in the wagon.  Since I had just completed a course on recognizing "issues" in my own life, I apparently now found myself an expert at recognizing them in his.  To keep the peace, I didn't mention what I noticed, but I definitely returned to the house unsettled in my mind that he couldn't notice these things about himself.  I sat down in our den frustrated.  There was music playing, a kid's CD that we had accidentally left on.  It just happened to be a song that goes, "I will not be afraid.  I will not be afraid.  I will not be afraid of the darkness."  As sweetly as the song played, I heard the voice of God say, "you cannot be afraid of his darkness."

I have a friend who says that some people are experts at putting lipstick on a pig.  I think as women we do this for our husbands and our children to protect ourselves.  It has nothing to do with protecting their need for respect but everything to do with how their behavior effects us.  We respond out of fear and we address them abruptly expecting them to change quickly.  We surely don't want anyone thinking bad about us because of what they did or God forbid, how they dress :).

In that moment, I knew that just like God revealed to me what needed to change in me, He would do the same for my husband.  And just like I have to go through experiences that expose my pride in order for me to get rid of my pride, my husband would have to do the same.  Trying to detour him around these experiences would only delay the result.  The same goes for my children.  I've got to allow them to experience their own hurts, their own mistakes, their own losses and then be there as a guiding force through it.

I was wrong that day in my assessment of my husband.  I can still remember that my son was in the wagon singing the verses of Amazing Grace.  If only I had allowed myself to be captivated by not only his ability but his heart in that moment, I would remember that walk with my family that day fondly.  I robbed myself of that moment.

This life tool is to talk about what is in the dark.  It's the main secret I learned in that class.  If we will just talk about it and tell a trusted source, we will see it more clearly as we move it from the concealed place.  In our ability to see it more clearly, we will have more insight in what to do with it. You can't expose someone else's darkness because you really can not know what is in there.  It's dark.  Why do you think you can see into it?  But you get the privilege of feeling around your own darkness, and you know exactly how full or empty it is.