Imagine This

Shadows

I'm surrounded by a darkness even when the light switch is on. I hear the laughs and jokes around me but I still see the brokenness. I hear the faults in the stories, the blind leading the blind. My mouth wants to become more like them-the shadows creeping up. My body pulls to be apart of them, drawn to that darkness inside. It's like the sun is too bright and shiny a place-the shadows inviting me to rest. But I can't let the darkness overcome my spirit, the sun now warm against my back. I shiver at the coldness of those shadows from before. I won't let the shadows overcome my light inside me for the darkness is the absence of the light not the other way around. You cannot have a flashlight of darkness in a well-lit room. Do not hide your light under a basket as the shadows torment you for not being cold as they are. Unfreeze your heart and step out into the sunshine to let the rays wash over your darkness. Become clean and bright for you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You were made for a purpose and it is not to live in the shadows, constantly shivering in the cold and trying to make others as miserable as you are without your jacket. I will feel the sun beat down on my face, warming me to my very core and I will brave the night when it comes, threatening to steal the day away. I will go by my moon, the light in the darkness. I will stand to be a Christian in this dark, cold world. I will not succumb to these little giggles and playful invites to walk down that dangerous path. Frost once wrote, "I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference." I will walk along that sunny path, leaving the shadowed trail alone-for God is with me and I cannot fail.