THE LIGHT HAS THE VICTORY

 "I know why we won't sleep in heaven. Because there is no darkness there!" 

- Jackson, 8.

I started the new year with my new Bible reading plan. This year I am going with the chronological reading plan. I encourage you to be in the Word this year in whatever way works for you! But, for me it means reading thorough the Bible each year. As you may very well know - the beginning is Genesis. The beginning is that God creates. 

At the beginning of this week I thought I would be writing about God as creator. I thought I would be writing about God having so much love to give that He decided to create and share it with us. That God created us in His own image. It's what I made my tiktok devotion about. But, as the week has progressed - the Holy Spirit has been shifting me. 

Light.

vs 

Darkness. 

I was trying to find statistics to support the "age old" expression that depression and suicide rates go up after the holidays. What I was surprised to find was that those rates actually tend to go up in the spring. So, my tiktok was about the potentiality of starting now to be intentional with the God who created us and loves us so much that we could hold onto the glimmer of hope in the midst of tough circumstances, depression, anxiety, etc. The fact that maybe this gets us started in the right direction even though we will still go through hard seasons - we have hope in Jesus. We have hope in the God who created us. Who loves us. 

But then, the Holy Spirit kept talking throughout the week. I kept getting - Light. Focus on the Light. Because light overpowers darkness. 

Jesus is the light of the world. 

We just celebrated this truth at Christmas time as we do every year. So it seems appropriate that I would start the new year with reading that God created light. God created light and God sent light into the world. And we, too (as Christ followers), are light in the world for those who do not yet know Him. 

Light wins. Light has the victory. Hopefully if you are reading this you know that we know the ending of the story and the ending is that Jesus, the Light, wins the battle. If you don't know this truth - I hope you hear it today. Because we live in a world with a LOT of darkness. 

Depression.

Anxiety.

Suicide.

Financial instability. 

Brokenness in our marriages. 

Brokenness in our families.

Death.

Sickness.

The list could go on and on and on. 

This week. I discovered that my oldest, Jackson, has anxiety. He doesn't know what that is necessarily - but, he definitely has it. Over the course of the last couple of years we have noticed that he has a hard time with confidence and when he doesn't understand something he has anxiety attacks. He tells me that he has a sense of fear, his heart gets warm, and his heart races in his chest, and then he usually ends up in tears when he has anxiety attacks. 

His father and I both have had a hard time with mental illness and we have had to do a lot to work through that. So, I guess it comes as not a huge surprise that one of our children is wrestling with this - but, it still breaks my heart. Two nights ago as we were going to bed I did devotions for each boy and when I finished Jacksons I felt like God was prompting me to ask him if he had any prayer requests. It was at this point that he expressed his anxiety over his grades at school. I was surprised as we have always told him to just try his best, it's okay to get things wrong, and ask for help when you don't understand. But, when you deal with anxiety - even knowing all those things isn't always enough. 

Anyway. 

I prayed for him. I asked if I could hold his hands and as I got to the point in my prayer about praying specifically for his anxiety his hands started to tremble in mine. It took everything within me to not burst out in tears for my son. My heart broke because this is the first time he is really experiencing darkness in his life. 

It was the very next night he told me the quote I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. There is no darkness in heaven. Jesus is light. Jesus wins the battle. So we had a really good conversation after school yesterday about darkness creeping in and that Jesus is light and so we can push that darkness right back out. 

What is your darkness?

Ours is financial burdens. I went from having a full-time income, to half that, to none at all. My husbands business is kind of floundering and it's the "off season" so it's slow. And we are both "side hustling" to make ends meet. Sometimes its hard to trust in God in the moments I am budgeting every week and I feel anxiety creeping in. 

What is your darkness?

Maybe you are dealing with mental illness. Maybe you are dealing with brokenness in your home with your kids or with your spouse. Maybe you lost someone close to you recently. Maybe someone you are close to has cancer. Maybe. 

Maybe in the midst of all the darkness that seems to surround us we can take a step back and remember that God created light. God gave us light through Jesus Christ and He wins. 

God is near. God is faithful. It doesn't always take away the pain right away. It doesn't always take away that we deal with darkness in our lives - but the Light will win. The Light will prevail. 

The Light has the victory.