A Blessed Darkness
With apologies to the feast of Christ the King, I am going off script. I feel called in a different direction, and experience has taught me to trust God’s nudges in my spiritual journey.
I begin with a confession. I write often about the scriptures, and you are gracious with my wanderings. While my writing reflects my prayer with the Gospel, I have seldom acknowledged the darkness in my prayer and spiritual journey.
A new insight has taken hold, and I want to share it because I know I am not alone. Each of us has a unique spiritual journey. We seek a relationship with our God of love, long for union and forgiveness, rest in God’s power, and honor God for His unwavering faithfulness. The journey is our prayer.
For many, the journey of prayer is a blessing. It comforts, supports, and amazes. God gives hope and direction. Prayer is good and beautiful. Those who know and have this intimacy with God are blessed indeed.
For some, prayer is a struggle. It is devoid of feeling. They seek God with all their hearts, and God is silent. They feel nothing when they pray; no matter their intent, desire, or love, they do not feel or know God’s life-giving presence.
That is a familiar experience. Many saints experienced darkness in prayer. Saints John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote of years of only experiencing darkness and emptiness when they prayed. They were saints, so it is no surprise that some of God’s faithful in every age experience darkness, separation, and even doubt when they pray.
Some people who experience an abyss of darkness when they pray blame themselves, thinking they are doing something wrong or are unworthy. For those who only know emptiness when they pray, prayer is silent and dark without the light and love of God. Prayer becomes a desperate search for God’s light.
Sometimes, we all feel distant from God, but this feeling is fleeting for most. For others, God’s absence lasts not weeks but years and years. Mother Teresa experienced this for 50 years—St. Therese from her profession of vows until her death.
For those of us who experience God’s silence and seeming absence when we pray, this insight might help: We have been called and anointed a special friend of God.
Some of us have been called to walk with Jesus in the darkness of doubt and longing. We are called to pray in the darkness that Jesus walked when he wept over Jerusalem, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he was scourged at the pillar, on his torturous journey to Calvary, in his crucifixion, death, and tomb. Jesus knew darkness in those days. He knew doubt and a desperate longing for the presence of His Father. He also knew loss, distance, and the feeling of abandonment.
Begging for the darkness in prayer to leave us is futile. The solution is not to run from the darkness but to embrace and love it. The key is to love God so much that you abandon yourself to the silence and emptiness; you walk with Jesus in His darkest hours. We are most blessed when we do not run from but willingly surrender to the darkness of our prayer. In the prayer of emptiness, God’s most lavish grace is freely given to those who pray, knowing only distance from God.
For Jesus and us, there are lights of hope in the darkness. Jesus, in His darkest hours, met Veronica, His mother, John the beloved disciple, and the women of Jerusalem. Those were respites on His most painful journey. We are also given those oases in what can seem a barren faith journey. Rejoice when they come. And then continue to be faithful in the dark night of your prayer.
When God calls us to pray without consolation, He proclaims us a most trusted friend. He trusts our fidelity and that we will never leave Him alone. We do not curse the darkness. We embrace God’s silence and rest with Jesus in His darkest hours. This is the fullness of grace and blessing.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
