For Those of us Afraid of the Dark.

I have been contemplating fear lately.

When I came to Christ - or, rather, when He busted His way into my heart, I was involved with the occult - and with an extreme sensitivity to fearful things. Movies, plays etc.  And in the after-occult season the fear of darkness - actual and imagined - became a factor in my life.

He took the darkness out of me, washed out the remaining stains, but the fear has come to be one I have never conquered.  I cannot sleep in the total darkness.  I need some tiny bit of light to be able to sleep.

As a nurse, I became interested in the hospice movement, and one of the things it taught me was that dying patients almost always want to be in light, sunlight or manufactured, ss they leave this world.

I have health conditions which have placed me in that position a few times.  And now a virtual friend is facing that challenge daily, as he fights a vigorous battle with lymphoma.  And moments of fear overwhelm him.

It is a fearful thing, death. 

Even though it is something we all will face, even though the One Who bought us with HIs blood has conquered it before us - and won!- even though we truly know, to the tiniest cell in our bodies, that we will be in His presence the millisecond we leave this earth.

Even though....

When I was standing on the edge of that cliff, gazing into the darkness of the unknown, the fear would not let me go.  Would not.

Oh, I could vanquish it for the moment - and always with His Name on my lips - but when the thought came round again, threw another harpoon into my heart, breathed in my ear, it was battle time again,

It still is.

I can think of it from a distance, as though it was a far off  event, but when it comes to REAL and TRULY, it takes awhile for me to call on His Name and claim His peace. And while I have made the provisions and protocols for this body my spirit dwells in, leaving this body - and thoughts of the actual process by which it will happen, are fearful. 

Corrie Ten Boom, another heroine of mine, said that, as a child, she told her father that it scared her, this death that would, eventually, end her life.

He asked her, "Corrie, when do I give you your ticket when we take the train.?"

"When it's time to get on it." she answered.

"That is when Jesus will take away your fear.  Right now, you don't need the courage to face it.  When the moment comes, Jesus will give you your ticket and you will not be afraid."

And so it was.

And I trust it will be the same for me.

I don't need that peace right now - because it isn't time, yet.

But I trust, like Corrie, that when the moment comes, His joy will fill my heart, and my spirit will take flight.

And there will never be another moment of fear of the dark.

Until that day, or moment, or second comes, I will leave it in His hands.