A friend shared a bit of their testimony with me recently.
Thinking about it now, my heart aches.
But I also see a picture of beauty rising from the ashes. A flower coming up for air from cinders and soot.
Jesus is real. He is actually risen from having been actually dead. I don't know how often I throw myself into that freakish mystery without some sense of reservation in my brain.
But my friend's story reminds me that it's true. It's True--new life, joy, redemption, wholeness. The darkness is not the end of the story. It's terrible and painful and can steal so much life away, and no one goes through life unscathed. But it's not the end.
Jesus is the light in the darkness.
Jesus is the healing balm.
Jesus is comfort and help in time of need.
Jesus is beauty and mercy and grace and perfect love.
Jesus is the lover we long for.
Jesus will usher in a new heavens and a new earth, tangible realities for our resurrected physical bodies to enjoy and explore for eternity. All the darkness that weighs down our minds and spirits and bodies these halfway days--all the hurts we've inflicted on others and all the hurts we've suffered ourselves--will be left behind and become untrue.
Following him doesn't mean that life right now will be sunshine and roses from here on out, or that the scars from the past necessarily disappear overnight. But he does promise never to forsake us, never to leave us. And he bore our injustices, our falsehoods and sins, on the cross of his sacrifice in order to free us from the darkness and its suffocating chains.
Only he is able.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Glory.
