We stand in the vestibule after church service, my friend and I, and we talk in rushed sentences. The crowd comes around us like a wave moving toward our momentary shore. But I can tell, even though words are few, that the battle she’s engaged in rages strong.
I can see the burden in the lines of her smile.
I can hear the weight of worry in her words.
And I feel her hurt and pain on the skin of my own soul.
We chat for a few moments. Because I know her heart and she knows mine, we can get to deep places fast. There’s no room for surface skimming. We need to know how to pray for one another. And after a whisper of time, she goes in one direction. Off to her family. Off to her day. And I walk toward mine.
But it strikes me, as we part, that being a woman of faith is a precious thing.
Walking as a woman of faith doesn’t mean that there are not dark circumstances and deep shadows. It means that we have the promise of Light that will forever break through.
And again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
Life holds struggles. Lonny and I have been working through a shadow of circumstance for some time now. But I’m learning, as I put one faith foot in front of the other, there’s not a form of darkness that light can’t penetrate.
There’s no situation so dank and deep that the Lord’s presence can’t shine through–scattering all shades of darkness with His sustaining, saving, hope-giving holy light.
Darkness can never really be darkness, because for us, the light of the Lord is there.
So when I pray for my friend, when I know that despair seems close and the end of the struggle far away, I’ll pray that she’ll walk in faith. That she’ll follow Jesus.
And that with every step her feet would fall on the grace-filled, Savior-illuminated path of light.
