Where love is handed out only if you reciprocate or exceed its investment in you,
Where most everything is done for personal gain,
And there are no absolutes to plant your shaky feet on.
Before knowing Christ I longed for absolutes, searched for them hungrily, let them rule my life.
I remember that 18-year-old girl who put her whole hope in the absolute certainty of a career in the United States Air Force, who thrust all energy and effort into gaining the ultimate joy understood at the time: an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, a dream realized.
I remember that girl who only ever felt complete when they gave her nice certificates and awards and peer's parents said, "Wow, you're doing something amazing," and the words honorable and special and prestigious went before her name and her goal in life. And she built a high pedestal for these things, never dreaming they could collapse.
I remember the utter devastation when going to the Air Force Academy was all she dreamed it would be and more, when she had a sure job, a sure purpose, a rock solid sense of worth and achievement,
and then the words "Medical Discharge" destroyed that pedestal she'd worked so hard to build, uttered by a bedside doctor with cold eyes and a smile that was rotten with false sympathy.
I remember the depressed months, the dances with anorexia, how it seduced me all the way to the edge of a cliff, the edge of my very life.
I remember a broken young woman, 19, sobbing in a hospital bed, ashamed of the skeleton she'd become.
And then I met the Light.
Yes, the light, the light who shines in the darkness.
And best of all, the light was the one sure promise that does not fail, because the darkness has not overcome it.
Far removed from the pain after walking with a Savior,
living a life where that tale I just told, that story I call "my past,"-- it just seems like a bad nightmare that cannot touch me now because every day is an experience of abundant, sure, everlasting grace and nothing less,
I can see now how the darkness did not overcome the light.
I can see how the things that promised my death and despair, that were rooting for my ruin, the lies, the shame, the circumstances, the emptiness after being robbed of hope after placing it in false things,
they didn't stand a chance because this Light who is the love of my light, He always overcomes the darkness, and has since the beginning of time, and will forever and ever.
So walking in the first week of a semester of grace, how could anything compete with that truth?
Easily, a frazzled heart laughs after lab reports and quizzes and tests.
But even that skepticism, even the imperfections that still dwell in me,
they still are no match for the Light that wins over the darkness every time,
the Light who in all things works on me and wins, even when for a foolish moment I think my judgment of the contrary is right and doubt begins to threaten.
And in this sure thing, that the Light came and defeated darkness, life is nothing but fullness of grace.
And in this sure thing the Lord gave grace by giving Himself, the Undefeated One, so that the things of this world might not touch me anymore as I approach His glorious throne.
What about you, friend?
Do you know the Light?
And if you do, do you really know that the Light has overcome every darkness in your life, whether you acknowledge it or not?
Join me in the next week of grace written on our hearts as we memorize with Ann Voskamp's Jesus Project.
Here is next week's morsel of God's glory sure to satisfy every soul that works with it, let's it transform them, breaths it in:
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