I'm not gonna lie.
Thoughts of how this Christmas will be as we plan around my Dad in the hospital has become a "dark spot" in my vision!
Somehow I hit an emotional breaking point while we were in worship at Healing Hearts yesterday morning. When the "sharing time" of our service was announced, I knew I needed to open up and be honest about where I was at.  I began, tearfully, to express how many Christmases past have been split for me. With my parents' separation when I was seven years old, I have always had divided loyalties for spending the holidays.  Now this year, some of that has hit an emotional crisis for me with my Dad being very ill and traditions for celebrating with him and his wife and that side of our family being totally uprooted!
I was reliving some of my childhood feelings-wanting to be with both sides of my parents' families, wanting to stay in one place, not traveling back and forth, feeling torn at saying "good-bye" to one parent and having the guilty feelings layered over happiness!
Another layer of emotions has come with my Dad's grave illness and the possibility of losing him in the near future.  It feels like a darkness is shadowing what for me has become a joyful holiday season that I look so forward to every year!
Add yet another layer with my feelings of responsibility to "make everyone happy", especially at Christmas.  I have a family of my own who will all be together this year.  I want for them to have a wonderful, warm time at home.  They, too, are grieving and hoping for their Grandpa's health.  So, hosting some of the festivities in our home is a great joy for me but a responsibility I have taken on, as well.
I know this darkness is life.  It is reality.  No one escapes troubles.
And I am just beginning to discover what "treasures in the darkness" can mean.
My dear friend and sister in the Lord shared this verse in Isaiah 45:3 and what it meant as her sister is battling cancer in her home country of Germany.  As she expounded on the verse and her experience, I felt a connection but not quite a revelation of what she was explaining.  So this morning I thought I'd dig a little deeper and God did not disappoint me!
The nation of Israel had been completely overrun and her peoples taken captive and exiled.  But through the prophet Isaiah, God was speaking hope to her.  He was raising up a foreign king, Cyrus, to show favour to the Israelites and allow them to return to Jerusalem and begin to rebuild.  So in Isaiah 45:1&2, God speaks about Cyrus being His anointed one to do God's will "to subdue nations and strips kings of their armour."  God Himself would go before Cyrus to open doors, level mountains, break down gates and cut through bars of iron.  And then, God would give "the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places".
In the past, I've known how sweet it is to go through dark times and know God's comfort and love.  I have felt so close to Him when all I've had IS His presence to make it through!  Sometimes we learn the best when we're forced to rely only on the Lord.
I believe God wants to heal me in the deeper, darker places of my heart this Christmas.  He wants me to focus on what really matters, not what I think others are expecting of me.  The holidays are NOT ABOUT ME!  God is giving treasure-Himself-to whoever will look to Him.  He can be found in the darkness.  The greatest reason He can be found there is "so that you may know that I am the Lord" (verse 3b).
Would I even seek for the Saviour if everything was sunny and perfect in my life?  Probably not.  But when the struggles and difficulties come that cannot be resolved by my efforts or someone else's abilities, that is when I know I need a Saviour.  Then I can declare with Isaiah's words from the Lord:
"I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God." (Isaiah 45:5a)
I am looking forward to the riches stored in secret places this Christmas...