But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
    which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

Proverbs 4:18

These days have had me wondering, ‘what is my story?’ And more, ‘what kind of story do I want to be living?’ Too, ‘can I trust the Author to do as He has promised–to write something good and beautiful?’

It was three years ago this month. I led a time with 500 women from Eastern Europe and Russia. We walked through the pages of our stories. As I shared, I talked about this one gleaming strand of redemption. ‘It is resilient and bright’, I said. ‘It runs through the entirety of our lives with its gleaming hope’, I passionately uttered. ‘It is unbreakable, marking the course of our journey’, I triumphantly pronounced.

All was clear as the blue of a crisp sunshine-y day.

Then it all happened. Short weeks later, there were the sleepless nights, delusions and terrifying visions. It was the eroding of my sanity and my escape from reality until the mania and I became one. It was the hospital, attempts to escape, sedatives pumped into me, and the ICU. It was the loss of what was my life and the holding of shredded remains. It was hurt from people I loved and goodbyes unsaid as we returned to the States from Hungary.

This dramatic and destructive turn in my story has me asking, ‘where is that gleaming thread now?’ in the hard moments, I try to see it all tied together. But, it seems like all went dark in my story for a time. What was being woven is merely a void of meaning and purpose. A great Destroyer grasped it firmly and would not let go. In these hard moments, the lies are resurrected and the hissing untruths swirl around me. What I was going to become is now replaced by an aching longing and the fear that I never shall. My confidence flickers dim as I look into the future.

It is a grace given that I can have the hard moments. The Author of my story is strong enough to wrap His hand about me in the midst of them. He is also a fierce warrior, who raises me to battle, as I fight with Him for a New Day.

And here it is in the pages of Scripture. The promise. It resounds as a drum beating in time with the steps I walk. As I am found in Jesus Christ, I am the righteous of God. Therefore my path glimmers to light until all is as the noonday sun. There is no room to give the darkness final say. Not ever.

When I take this truth into my heart, it stills the searching. What can seem but darkness as I gaze upon it, is only obscuring the light which I will One Day see in all its fullness. And the promise calls out to my heart. Will I trust it is so? Will I believe my brightest moment followed by my greatest tragedy was, in truth, the continuous working of something deeper–a light which outshines the deepest darkness I have known? Will I see triumph even in the weakest moments?

For light is always winning in my story. And light is always winning in yours too. Every promise, not only this one, is ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ in Jesus. He is the light which shines in the darkness and cannot be overcome. This doesn’t mean we can see it in the throes of tragedy. It doesn’t mean it is easy to hold onto the promise. Nor, does it mean the tattered threads we hold, magically transform before our eyes.

Yet, we lift our eyes to the Sun. We take our respite in the beauty of a Love which suffered all tragedy, alone to die upon a tree. We glory in the One forsaken, who bore the darkest moments of time, when all was seemingly lost and no one understood. We meet him at the empty tomb and let him hold us as he whispers words of triumph which echo our hope.

I still feel at a loss to write my story like I had the confidence to do before it all fell apart. There is a part of me which wants to keep going with the pages of the 28 chapters I wrote…before. To keep going, I mean, without really dealing with the darkness. But, even as I think it, I know these past chapters, as excruciatingly hard as they are, are re-writing that story. And I know there is a digging past all of the obscurity which will reveal the light.

Friend, I want to challenge you to look at your story, especially the hard parts. Dan Allender’s ‘To Be Told’ is a great way to do that. As he says ‘we are more than our tragedies.’ Infinitely more. We are the light of a New Day for all that is broken in this world. So, walk with me. Find your story. And let it embody its tenacious hope for you and others.