I am deeply disturbed.
Today I was told to go to a “dark room”.
A call for discovery.
A call for understanding self.
It was a humorous statement regarding the unknowns of the future.
The ambiguity. The doubt in ability.
Yet.
It hit closer to home.
Because it’s not a joke.
Darkness is not something I can joke about.
Darkness has depth.
…
“A Room Of One’s Own”, Virginia Woolf said.
Mmm.
Look where that led.
Suicide.
Death.
A room of one’s own.
To write.
To speak your mind.
But what will you find?
In your own mind?
…
See:
The mind.
Left alone.
Is a prison.
A confine.
…
Not a place to make home.
…
No.
…
A dark room is not the answer.
…
I think of a dark room and I think of photography.
The development of an image.
But I don’t want to develop an image of me.
I don’t want this to be my identity.
…
In a dark room you have control.
A contained space.
But.
What is exposed?
What is processed?
Is it true to your shape?
Or is it forced, framed.
Do we really have control?
Or.
Is the process, the product
u n c o n t r o l l e d
…
In a dark room there is emptiness.
What you learn in that place is how to escape.
…
Here dark images take form.
Here, light gives shape.
To the mystery.
To the empty.
The canvas of identity.
…
See:
Darkness is somewhere I now reject.
I cannot go back there.
Not now.
Not ever.
Not since knowing the light.
…
I will remain in the “light room” instead.
In the blinding, brilliant light that gives new sight.
Having had illuminated that which confines.
And exposed that which is just disposed.
…
Images.
Not true reflectors of identity.
…
This light room lifts the veil from the seen to the unseen.
This light enables a vision of a greater reality.
…
A supernatural mystery:
God’s glory
…
See:
Jesus is the image of God’s glory.
The reflection of true majesty.
…
I want you to come into the “light room” with me.
I want you to know, to see how Jesus changes everything.
…
“I’m okay” you may say.
“I don’t need Jesus”
…
Is this true?
Can you save yourself?
Have you ever felt empty?
…
There is nothing more haunting than emptiness.
Deep empty nothing.
The nothingness that never ends.
The vacant soul, the cavernous wounds
…
the lifeless corpse
…
Grim.
Morbid.
Real.
Broken.
Fragile.
Lifeless.
Limbs.
Dust.
…
Imagine a dark ball.
Tight. Bound. Self-contained.
We are all this way.
…
Until.
…
Escape.
…
The tightness gives way.
We allow ourselves to break.
To confront our own brokenness, our own fragility, vulnerability.
We release that which has bound us so.
We no longer close ourselves off to the light.
We expose what’s inside.
Our hearts.
…

If we live to control our image, we live in the dark.
Here, we may be well-developed in the light.
But this is a disguise. Instead.
Living in the light is living to let go of control.
We let go of image when we look to the source of true light, that is – Jesus Christ.
Turning our faces to him allows everlasting light and life to seep into our skin.
Here, there is vulnerability required.
We must surrender to our need for a Saviour.
And the result? A penetrating strength and joy that comes from within.
A skin that beams with radiance, as we reflect our true image, that of the Creator.
A life acknowledging the uncontrollable.
A life confessing we are creation, not Creator.
A life with an image that is broken yet beautiful, where true light leaks through.
A life lived not by disguise of the image kind, but filled with a deeper light.

Oftentimes labelled the optimistic, the ray of sunshine, the positive – silver lining – wordsmith, I have a confession. Darkness. Deep darkness. I am absolutely certain that to know true light, you must know what lies in the shadows, in the dark. When you encounter the extreme, you know when to flee. To run from captivity, to enter into that which beckons beyond. To flee towards the hope, faith, and love – the call of Jesus to “come”.

Come – follow me.
Come – seek after me.
Come – abide in me.

Cue the corny, but there is a true light at the end of the tunnel. When you’re drowning, sinking, deep, deep, deep in the darkness, the empty ocean engulfing your being, you can’t breathe. But. When there’s a flashing, a light, epileptic, filtering through, repeatedly, calling you, inviting you, drawing you … you start to swim. You start to search, slowly, moving towards the light, the surface, the glimpses of glory, the rays that you didn’t realise could reach so deep.

For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4:6

We are bodies, beings … broken. But. The Lord’s love is a light that illuminates the heart. The darkness of the world is covered in a blanket of pride and knowledge that confines and doesn’t liberate, only divides.

Man wanted to know, wanted to gain the status of god, and here we are, seeking our own glory, elevating the ‘self’, only to increase bitterness… the rotting of the soul, the corpse turned empty, callous, cold, hard-hearted.

See. I can’t shake this dream. Where there was a body. A dead body. A young boy. He was covered in a cloth. We peeled back the cloth. He was dead. Lifeless. Until. We called out. We cried. We lamented for the life spent in sin, the brokenness. A prayer, in the name of Jesus. Pause. Then. Play. The boy’s eyes sparked. Lifeless to life.

See:
Resurrection is real.
In Christ there is newness of life.

In this dream. The young boy. He was no longer empty. His body no longer vacant. He was filled. Filled with a new spirit. Fervency. Faith. Hope. Love. LIGHT. True light! His eyes were wilder than a shooting star in the night. This Jesus. The true God that came in flesh. He rose from the dead. And he left us with a spirit of power, love and sound mind – not a spirit of timidity (2 Timothy 1:7).

…
This spirit.
New life.
…
A breath.
A flame.
…
A promise to claim.
A truth to proclaim.
…
And the dark room?
I’m leaving that behind.
…
I’m living in the light.
I’m living for the light.
…
I choose to reflect Christ.
Until I die.
…
I choose life.
Not dark confines.
…
What will you decide?
…