True confession: to this day, I— a mature, grown woman, reasonably well-balanced, and of sound mind—retain a secret, residual apprehension of the dark. This is a carry-over from my childhood and though I recognize that all children experience a certain amount of fear of the dark, mine was an inordinately deep-rooted, brain-numbing, heart-thudding terror.
There are logical reasons: my earliest childhood was spent in the jungle. Night-fall in a tropical rain-forest happens quickly—the sun just drops, seemingly, out of sight—and there it is—darkest of night. There are no lights from civilization to brighten the sky; the moonless gloom below the forest canopy is a place of mystery: nameless sounds, rustlings, sibilant whisperings, grunts and hoots. Directly outside the warm lights of our home lay a vast ocean of secretive blackness. I would no more set foot out there than face a caged lion.
One time Daddy was carrying me from our house up over the hill to the Bible school chapel for the evening service. The family had already gone ahead. My loving, but unaware father remembered something he needed to get, so midway up the rise he sat me on a stump and went back to the house. There I was, age five or six, alone and oh so fearful in the darkness.
Overhead I saw the splendid effulgence of a star-lit tropical sky. Though amazed by the spectacular clarity of each orb, my attention focused inexorably on the blackness around about me. What WAS that movement in the undergrowth? I sat, my shoulders hunched, and my heart thumping in my ears, mute with fear.
A soft breeze ruffled my hair and brought the redolence of the rain forest scents: moldy leaves, an exotic fragrance of a hidden flower; the wood smoke from the Dayak village’s cooking fires. I was hardly aware of these distractions.
Daddy could not have taken more than three or four minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. He returned and no child could have been more relieved than I was. I don't recall if I said anything to him—probably not—my relief was too great.
My strong, handsome father was my hero—then, as always. But he had abandoned me once, very early in my life, which resulted in the second reason for my fear of the dark. I don’t even have conscious memories of that season, as I was only a toddler. Dad and Mom had to leave me in the hospital, not being allowed to stay because of the contagion of the polio virus with which I was afflicted.
Daddy, who should have been my protector, my hero—walked out the door and left me there, screaming. I could not have known my parents’ own agony. Their grief is told elsewhere in my writing.
Then the nightmares began—the conscious part that I do remember.
The usual pattern in my dreams consisted of Daddy walking out of my dark room, and I, seeing his silhouette in the lighted hallway. I would call to him, but he would keep going, seeming to ignore my cries. And something lurked in my room, an evil creature that looked like a giant turtle, and I would be frozen with fear.
Thankfully, the nightmares dwindled and disappeared over the years. I never told anyone about them, but probably a psychologist would point to those episodes as part of my ongoing unease. To this day, I prefer to sleep with a nightlight, or some form of light shining somewhere, especially if Harry is away.
Light is an incredible aspect of creation. God spoke it into being even before creating the sun, moon and stars. It is an intrinsic facet of His very Being—“God is light.” Light is made brighter where there is absolute blackness. A candle can be seen on a dark, clear night for miles—how much more the blazing resplendence of God’s Light and Glory, illuminating the deplorable darkness of this sinful world.
The Apostle John, in his first letter, writes about walking in the light as God is in the light. This calls to mind the times in Borneo where our family would walk a trail at night, and I would be riding on Daddy’s back. The lantern or flashlights we carried would create a circle of light which, if we walked in that, there was security and safety. Beyond the circle was the utter blackness of the jungle.
Psalm 139 testifies, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.” The Psalmist had indeed experienced the “dark night of the soul”,” and yet the light of God’s presence shone for him even there.
When there are those inevitable seasons of loss, grief, disappointment or abandonment, the darkness does not have to swallow me up. “In Him there is no darkness at all.” I can choose to walk in the Light.
