A Journey from Despair to Hope
The season of spring portrays a glorious shift from despair to hope, as it captivates us with a visual symphony of praise. More than a pleasing shift from the stark panoramas of winter, spring’s vibrant beauty ushers in hope for the hard realities of our winter spiritual seasons.
Spring illustrates the victory of the resurrection like no other season, enveloping the darkness of our hard paths in the glorious Light of God’s Love and Presence. Revealing the truth of John 1:5:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
But even more than the victory of God’s Light over darkness, meditating on the resurrection of Jesus Christ unleashes hope for the dead places of our lives. Relationships, dreams, and everything which was once vibrant but now seems lifeless, in God’s hands finds redemption.
I was thrilled when Vessels of Light announced their Spring Literary Journal theme of “Resurgam: From Dark Graves to Garden Light”. From the Latin meaning, “I shall rise again”, resurgam invites us into contemplating God’s resurrection power in our lives.
There is no place too dark for God’s healing Light to penetrate and heal.
Prompted by God to share my own journey from despair to unchained hope, my mind traveled back to one of the darkest times of my life when my oldest daughter walked out of my life.
From the Dungeon of Despair to Unchained Hope-A Story of the Light That Overcomes Darkness in Six Parts
I.
Darkness. The stuff of nightmares, specters, and haunting memories. The simple pronunciation of the word provokes fear. This day was no different. Though brilliant sun shone outside, I felt the icy fingers of darkness begin gripping my heart.
Dreading the familiar sensation, I braced myself for its entombing effect. Stepping outside, I lifted my face to the sun, eyes closed, as my soul implored the light to dispel the darkness creeping over it. A gallant attempt at distraction, but no amount of sunlight ever overcame the shroud of darkness that stole my very breath.
At times darkness came by stealth, other times I knew its arrival was imminent, but never once did it come by invitation.
Inside, I knew darkness held me captive; outside no one knew. On this day, as darkness tightened its grip on my heart, the piercing pain forced the tears from my eyes in unhindered cascades. I watched my daughter as she walked away and never once glanced back.
They came, every word, every nuance, all the memories; I wanted them to stop. But then that was the way of the darkness: cold, cruel, unrelenting, and so very empty.
II.
Nothing prepares a parent for the sudden severing of a relationship with their child. Even today, when I reflect on the events culminating in my daughter leaving our home, the pieces fail to fall into place. Left with more questions than answers, my heart splintered by degrees over the course of three long years.
Though cruel, life demands continuation. Birthdays, holidays, even in the mundane meals, her absence spoke louder than her voice ever did. But worse than the physical absence was the absence of any knowledge of her whereabouts or if she was dead or alive.
From my deepest sorrow, I cried out to God but not as one who anticipated an answer.
Deceived by the darkness, I believed my failures deafened God’s ear towards me. Beyond the heartrending incident with my daughter, each subsequent circumstance of suffering drove me deeper into the darkness I both despised and dreaded.
In my mind, I equated suffering with darkness. As a young girl, I faced hardship, abuse, loss, and trauma alone. Vivid memories of claustrophobic nights of loneliness and cruel taunts still attend my unguarded moments years later.
III.
Even after I became a Christian, walking with the Lord, suffering felt like a heavy shroud of darkness. A garment I never chose but wore out of compulsion, suffocating under the weight of it.
The combined factors of my haunted past and fear of the unrelenting darkness which filled my life in the form of suffering contributed to my perspective of suffering as punishment. I felt stigmatized because I considered myself an outcast, and therefore I distanced myself from others as much as they distanced themselves from me.
Voices from the past reproached me with professions of guilt, shame, failure, and worthlessness. Spoken in darkness, magnified their impact and solidified their legitimacy. Regardless of my efforts at dragging them into the light, the cloak of darkness never fully released its grip long enough to view them any other way.
The darkness isolated me, interrogated me, and stood as my inexorable Accuser, further instilling the reality of my complete helplessness. Of all the manifestations of the darkness, helplessness was the most pervasive, fueling anxiety as I faced the reality of my inability to change anything.
I also wrote a companion piece of poetry called a villanelle. For those unfamiliar with this form of poetry, a villanelle is a poem of nineteen lines, and which follows a strict form that consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four-line stanza). Villanelles use a specific rhyme scheme of ABA for their tercets, and ABAA for the quatrain.
My villanelle is entitled “No Darkness Has Power to Quench His Light” and moves through darkened paths with the refrain “Whatever comes, His presence is my sight. No darkness has power to quench His Light.”
Specifically released for Mental Health Awareness Month, the Resurgam Literary Journal stands as a flame of Hope for all those battling the darkness of harsh realities and is dedicated to those especially suffering with mental health.
I am deeply grateful to Alexis Ragan and the editors at Vessels of Light for graciously publishing my essay and villanelle. I pray God uses His words penned by me to breathe hope into the lives of all who read them. Truly Jesus Christ is with each of us on the journey from despair to unchained hope.
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