When the Lights Went Out

No one likes to sit in the dark, right? Like when a thunderstorm knocks the power out and it causes you to have to break out the candles and flashlights? It’s never fun. Often it’s a waiting game to see when the power company can get the power turned back on, and it can be a process. There can also be times of unexpected power outages where there’s no apparent cause- the lights just go off. Maybe you question if you remembered to pay the bill this month, or maybe you make sure nothing has happened to your power source outside. You may even find your breakers and start flipping them in the hopes of finding the issue and getting it resolved. If you check all of those boxes to no avail, the next step would often be calling the power company, right? When you’ve done all you can do but still- no power… then you reach out for help, or you sit in the dark and hope it doesn’t last long… but darkness is hard. Darkness is lonely. Darkness is an absence of light, and it makes it difficult to see. This is true for physical darkness, but I dare say that spiritual darkness is even harder, lonelier, and more difficult. Let me explain.

When we are without light, it is much more easy to navigate when we know the cause of its absence. If there’s a storm, an accident, a faulty breaker- anything that gives us a why makes the darkness more bearable. It’s the unknown that brings about the fear, the questions, and the frustration. I am using the analogy of a power outage, but if I’m honest, I don’t think it fully encapsulates what I’m trying to express. Last summer, late July into August, I unknowingly walked into a season of darkness that was darker than every other dark I’ve ever experienced- even though I’ve been in some dark places in life before. This was different. This was one of those unexplained, no obvious reason for, kinds of darkness. The one where you make sure the bill is paid, the power pole outside is fine, the breakers are fine… no reason, and no relief. Every other dark season I’ve experienced, there was obvious cause for. There was the season of the death of a parent. There was the season of couch surfing with nowhere to call home. There were seasons of job losses, car losses, friendship losses. Seasons of trauma and seasons of rebellion. Seasons of isolation and seasons of weariness. But nothing has ever touched this level of darkness, and the fact that I could see no reason for it made it all the more difficult. It’s pretty hard to explain to people that you are struggling worse than you ever have when literally nothing at all looks like it is even remotely wrong with your life. Marriage? Was great. Job? Was great. Living out calling and purpose that I had only previously dreamed of? Was also great. But internally… I had hit an invisible wall. Every light was turned off and there I was, in perpetual darkness, desperate for answers. The Lord was so, so gracious to not only keep me from wandering wrong roads in that season, but also leading me into levels of healing, deliverance, and freedom that I didn’t know was possible.

I became a believer at age 17, so at this time last year, I had been walking with Jesus for about 15 years. I knew Him. I was serving Him. I was pursuing Him. I had surrendered to His call on my life. But what I had allowed Him to do in my life in those almost 15 years had not undone what happened in the first 17, and so even though I had tried to dowse all my trauma, brokenness, and pain with as much of Jesus as I could, it didn’t erase all that I had experienced before Him. As Christians, we often don’t talk enough about the fact that at salvation, yes our sins are forgiven, but we are not instantly healed and restored of every area of brokenness that is within us. Healing is a process, and even as someone who had known Him all that time, I was still incredibly broken… and that is why the darkness had to happen. There were some very strategic attacks of the enemy in that season- make no mistake. I am not saying that God caused the darkness, but I am saying He allowed it. He had taken me as far as He could take me in that capacity of brokenness, and if He hadn’t brought me to a place of utter helplessness and total darkness, I couldn’t fullfill the purpose that He has for me. Because He does have good plans for His children and things He wants us to do for Him, but those things are not His primary objective in our lives. God’s primary objective in our lives is for us to know Him and to know His power to heal and restore us as if the broken places had never even been there. Up until last year, I was doing what many of us in the Church do- applying spiritual bandaids to wounds on our soul that God desires to heal. Because we can have really good intentions, really look and sound like we’ve got it all together, and really legitimately know Him… but without allowing Him to heal what is still broken inside of us, we are going to be a bleeding Church that causes harm to others who are also bleeding. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people,” but I can attest to the fact that within the Christian community, we should be “Healed people who help people heal.”

When the lights went out last year, I had this overwhelming desire to withdraw from every area and role in my life. Church, both ministries I work for, everything. I was not suicidal, but I had this very real sense that that season was going to take me out. I truly didn’t understand at the time what was happening, but God began an unraveling process in me that has lasted well into this year. He began to show me all the things that I had never allowed Him to heal; things I had just thought were water under the bridge because I was a Christian. Salvation is no doubt miraculous; we get to enter into relationship with a perfect God through the finished work of a perfect Savior as people who don’t deserve His grace and mercy- I am not watering that down in any way- but also, salvation is not magical. It is not a prayer prayed and then we are automatically “over” or “past” everything that happened pre-salvation. The wounds, trauma, and brokenness in our souls now has access to the Healer, but if we don’t allow Him in to heal, He doesn’t force us to. I lived those 15 years with Him without really ever hearing teaching on the topic of soul wounds and healing. If my life were represented by a bottle, it was full to the brim with things and times in my life that needed healing, but all I had done was taken the lid off and poured Jesus on the very top and expected everything way down at the bottom of the bottle to be instantly better… but when the lights went out, the Lord said, “Empty the bottle.” He was beckoning me to trust Him in ways and with things I had never surrendered or even uttered out loud. He wanted me to pour out all the hurt and all the shame and all the lies I had believed so that He could then refill the bottle- refill me- with His love and His healing and His freedom in every area that had only known pain before.

If the power goes out and we sit in total darkness for an extended period of time, we can start to get desperate. We can start to seek help in ways we may not have otherwise when the lights were on and we could see clearly. This was how I made it through the darkness last year. I cried out to the Lord like I’ve never cried out to Him before. I read His Word through sobs every single day for weeks on end. I sought out wise counsel from those who have walked this journey longer than I have who I knew could and would point me to Him and to Truth. I had to have some excruciatingly hard conversations. Confession had to happen. Repentance had to happen. Coming out of agreement with lies of the enemy had to happen. Ripping bandaids off 20 year old wounds had to happen. Admitting things I’ve never said out loud before had to happen. Acknowledging my responsibility in some of those hard things had to happen. Going back all the way to wounds inflicted when I was in the womb had to happen. Why? Because a God good enough and big enough to save me from Hell is also good enough and big enough to heal me in such a way that my next 32+ years will be much more whole and much more free than the last 32. Because His gifts and calling are without repentance (Romans 11:29), He had never changed His mind about His anointing on my life. He had never decided to take back the gifts He’s put on the inside of me. But if He hadn’t brought me to a place where I was desperate for His healing, I’d never understand the power of that anointing or the magnitude of those gifts. He could use me broken, but He’s too kind to do that to His daughter. And that’s the part I was missing. The access to the Father that I have because I am His child. I’m not a performer. I’m not just a servant. I’m not a product of any circumstance I’ve been in. I’m not an accident. I’m His daughter, and good Father’s don’t let their daughters suffer in silence.

Psalm 139:12 became a verse I clung to in that season and I think I’ve mentioned it every day since the first time I read it. “Even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.” The season of darkness kept me from seeing Him at times, but it never once kept Him from seeing me… and that’s why I’m writing this. This was not fun to experience and it was not fun to admit. To have known the Lord for as long as I had and to be in leadership and in ministry and to admit that this level of struggle was going on… it was humiliating and hard. But the enemy loves for us to hide behind titles and platforms and positions, all the while being unsealed and bound up, because eventually, if we stay in those places in that condition, we are going to start bleeding on those around us. The brokenness that I was carrying last year would have eventually startled leaking out on those I was serving. God is not just looking for a Church that does things for Him while being far from Him. He is not looking for ministers and teachers and leaders to perform for Him while being ravaged by shame and insecurity and heartache. That is not abundant living and that is not what Christ died to give us. Religion so loudly declares freedom but it rarely tells anyone exactly how to find it. We have treated salvation like its as simple as coming home covered from head to toe in mud and filth and putting on a spotless new outfit, all without ever taking a bath and cleaning off the dirt. I had been wearing that spotless outfit for 15 years, but I had never allowed God to cleanse and heal what was underneath.

We have forsaken our access to the Father as His children and forged a new path as merely His servants who put on a good show for Him, and that is not at all how it was meant to be. Matthew 7:11 says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” I was serving a good Father who desired to pick me up, clean me off, and apply healing to wounds I had been hiding all of my life. He saw my mess and my pain, and He was not going to allow me to keep going in that condition. It was a very kind, very gracious gesture of my Father to allow the lights to go out in my life last year. There were so many days with more questions than answers, but He spoke. He revealed. He removed. He healed. He poked and prodded and it was painful, but not nearly as painful as remaining unhealed. Wounds have to be cleaned before they can begin to heal, and that’s what this past year has been. A really hard, amazing journey with Holy Spirit as He has healed and restored and redeemed and revealed and made new and unraveled. It is a season I would walk through a thousand times over again if it meant knowing Him like I know Him now. That was His heart in all of this. He has always known me, but He wanted me to know Him. Not just as Savior, but also as Father. As Healer (Jeremiah 17:4). As the One who restores my soul (Psalm 23:3). As the One who lifts my head (Psalm 3:3). As the One who sets me free (Isaiah 10:27). As the One who binds up my wounds (Psalm 147:3). As the One who shines light in my darkness (John 1:5). As the One who cleanses me (Psalm 51:7).

Nothing we do for the Lord will ever matter to Him as much as we ourselves matter to Him. When we allow Him to heal and restore and redeem us and our wounds, He gets glory through every scar and every place that His light shines through us. We get to tell a lost and dying world that they are seen and loved by a good Father who can cleanse them, heal them, and set them free. Salvation is a launching pad into depths of grace that we are just barely scratching the surface of if we refuse to acknowledge our need for healing. Living in a fallen world means there is going to be wounds inflicted along the way, but because our Savior has been wounded, we can be healed. Completely. He is not a God of halfway but of wholeness. I’m going to spend the rest of my life proclaiming the power of our Healer, and if you’ve made it this far, I’m praying that you too will allow Him to shine light into your darkness and heal your hurts. Jehovah Rapha is waiting. ❤️