What goes through your mind when a thunderstorm suddenly rages outside, and in an instant, you are left in darkness as all the lights go out? No candles, no flashlights, just the darkness.
George Iles, a 19th century author of articles concerning various scientific topics wrote, “Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” Darkness is one of our earliest fears isn’t it? It may be close to a universal fear. We desire to see all that is before us and when we are unable to do so, our imagination begins to work overtime. We see things that aren’t really there, we hear things that cause the hairs on the back of our necks to stand up, or we imagine all sorts of danger looming just over there in the shadows.
I am told that as a very young child I slept with a nightlight on in my bedroom. We lived in a large, old multi-storied house that creaked and groaned. Having a very active imagination, I conjured up all sorts of creatures lurking in and around our house who made those noises to prepare me for certain doom as their hands reached out for me in the darkness.
At some point I decided the ghosts and goblins and assorted sprites who were trying to scare me no longer would bother me. I figured if they had wanted to take me to some nether land of the spirit underworld, I would have already been their captive. That I had survived that fate gave me hope the darkness and whatever it held would not, could not harm me. A sense of grace-filled survival became the best antidote to the darkness, my fear or my negative thinking.