A Light in the Darkness

It is my last week on the reservation, and just as the first, the pain, suffering, and bad decisions are still so present. I have learned how to deal with the pain a lot better than the first half of my practicum. In the first four weeks the pain and stories sat like bricks on my back until the final piece of straw was lain there and it broke. The second time around (or second half that is) I have been able to receive the stories and sightings with sadness (for these things should break your heart) but at the same time not let myself be overwhelmed by them. God has taken each moment of other's pain that I begin to cradle closely and picked it up, easily and calmly, as He puts it on His own back. The burden has been much lighter.

The other night I was up on Prayer Mountain with a team and I was thinking of all the pain I had witnessed since I have been here: the dysfunctional and abusive relationships between parents and children, the marks on the arms of my girls, the bad decisions. It was so dark outside, and it reminded me of the darkness present on the reservation I looked down upon. As we sang worship songs and prayed over the view of the town all I could do was look up at the night sky, for the stars had become magnificent. When we had first arrived I had been rather disappointed, for the last bit of daylight was still peaking over the mountains and the stars were barely visible. But then the night grew darker, and the stars got brighter. Eventually they seemed to multiply like sparks off of a firework and I could even see the traces of the Milky Way. I realized then that the brightness of the stars in the dead of night was just like the reservation, or any place really. It is when the world is at its darkest that we as Christians should shine our brightest. It is when things get hard, when pain and suffering abounds, that our light should be most vibrant and most apparent to those around us. God knows each star and placed them all in the heavens, and so much more does He know each of us and our placement on the earth.

It gave me motivation, seeing those brilliant stars. It reminded me of what my life should look like, and it gave me peace to know that I was to serve a mission, a mission for the Creator. I decided then and there that if those stars could be so bright and so beautiful in the dead of night, then so would I. I would be the light God has called me to be, and allow Him to hold me up when my temptation is to wait until sunlight returns.