This morning at 6.30 Laurens our little four years old now, came laying next to me and said: “”Light is wrestling with darkness.”” He said it in Dutch of course, so he said acctually: Het licht stoeit met het donker, for those who know a bit of Dutch…
I responded: “”Ah, that is beautifully said, it sounds poëtic.”” Now Laurens started to wrestle with the word poëtic to loose the battle soon enough, utterly happy with the word beautiful, he took his tumb in his mouth. I asked him: “”And who is winning? “”
Totally sure and full of confidence he said: “”Light is winning!””
I, myself, woke up very early. It happens often to me in these weeks of transition, that I am awake because of political situations. Strange to see this happen. That never happened before. I played and slept through so many wars during my life, since I was born in 1977. The cold war, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the war in Yugoslavia. I was hardly aware of what was going on, let be that I understood a tiny bit of the impact of it. So much more pain and suffering while I played and did my own thing. Not that I blame myself, I was a happy thirteen year old at the time, and I wasn’t called to save the world. (not now either) and I couldn’t do much anyway except for praying and writing cards to people behind the Iron Curtain, what we faithfully did with all my siblings, every Sunday afternoon.
But now I do realize more of what is going on and can hardly push it out of my mind and heart. I can’t get rid of the thought that we are tested in our actions. In what we do or leave undone. But the question comes up if this is new. Is our whole life not a test in getting closer to God or walking away from Him?
With this all in mind I was reading this, again from Hye-Jin’s little journal:
This is My way of living in this world: Through you! Together, we will push back the darkness, for I am the Light of the world.
It is a time of intensive living, being in transition again, with a big move ahead of us. (we plan for the end of October.) I find myself pondering back what was and dreaming for what is to come. It is as if I am walking on my toos. An intensive, but beautiful time, in which I am forced to depend on God alone. In my mind came that Bible verse what Marijke had to learn in her first weeks at Willowdale Christian School, in 2010.
But you are a chosen people, people of the High Priests,
a holy nation, God’s own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God,
who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Petrus.2:9
It is nice that Laurens is saying: Light is winning! And it is true in the morning, but in the evening, it is the opposite. Darkness is winning. The whole long dark night. Darkness is surrounding us, hour after hour. But it is a way of perspective, when darkness is near, light is overflowing somewhere else.
……….
And it leaves (from the tree) are for the healing of the nations.
Nothing that is under God’s curse will be in the city. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship Him.
They will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads
and there shall be no night, and they will not need lamps or sunlight, because the Lord God will be their Light,
and they will rule as kings forever and ever.
Rev. 22
This gives hope, there is righteousness, here are people on this planet, who by God’s grace, make good choices. I know that evil is real, pain is real and so is suffering. And still: It will be alright with the refugees, although it seems to be a long dark night in the Middle East and in many other places in this world. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.
Light is winning!