Encouragement for the Darkness

Where does the darkness come from? Have you felt it? Cold numbing blackness...some have called it the 'dark night of the soul.'

Do you run from it or do you embrace it? Do you feel helpless and hide? Or do you busy yourself with a thousand distractions and pleasures to numb the pain.

We can learn alot from the natural world. Treasures come from the darkness. Plants need strong roots to grow deep in the dark soil, pearls form inside the shell, oil pipelines run underground. Hope and strenth happen in the waiting room of darkness and despair that night brings.

Carlo Carretto explains in Why, O Lord,
"There is more to come!
There is another darker, much more painful night.
It is the 'night of the soul,' the night in which we chatterboxes have to learn to keep still.
We who are so ready to ask for things--now we shall not dare to ask.
We fall silent, thunderstruck with the grandeur that confronts us: God.
The dark night of the spirit is the mature ability of the human being to love God in the dark, to accept the design even without seeing it, to bear the distance without complaining, even when love thrusts us toward Him until we writhe with longing."
Treasures in the darkness, riches in the secret places...