In The Dark Room

 

Do you remember the old photos back in the day? Remember the dark rooms?

Back in the day, you had to take the film out of the cameras and properly develop them. It was a long, slow and tedious process and any one little mistake could eventually be disastrous in the final process. The biggest skill needed is patience; waiting for the right moment to take the film out and hang it and let the light expose the picture within.

Life is like a dark room sometimes; things just don’t seem to be going right or going as fast as you would like for it to go. Sometimes, you feel stuck at a job that you don’t really like or feel passionate about, but you struggle through it day in and day out because you need a steady paycheck. Or you might struggle with feeling alone because you have to move away from your friends and family and live in a new city where you don’t know anyone. Or it might even just be your mind, tricking you into believing that you are stuck in a rut and everyone around you seems to be advancing.

I’ll be the first person to say it: I’ve been in these dark places. In fact, everything I mentioned above, that was me. And that is honestly why I haven’t been keeping up with my blog the way that I would like to. Yes, I’ve been busy (the holiday season for me is the busiest time between work and church and family and life), but I’ve also struggled with some of my thoughts and emotions, living in the dark room, wishing to be out in the light again.

But there will be times where we need to be in the dark room, where God can work on us and develop us. God is always constantly growing us and He can’t always grow and test and stretch us during the sunny times; there are private battles and little things that He needs to take care of in the dark, in the private places.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” — Romans 5:1-5

The hardest part is waiting for the moment when God develops our character. But this verse always gives me encouragement that, during this long wait and through the pain and hurt, God is using it to develop me into who He has called me to be. And once I get out on the other side of the struggle, I’m like a picture: a picture of hope.

There have been many times where I was at the lowest point in my life; everything that COULD go wrong seemed to go wrong. And it was painful to go through the struggle. But, looking back, I realized the lessons that I learned and the strength and faith that I grew.

And that’s what I want for this upcoming year; I want to be a picture of hope to others who might be in their dark rooms, struggling with sin, pain, hurt, loss, insecurity or anything else in their lives. I may not have gone through everything that you have, but I’m  a picture of the hope that I found in Christ through this struggle.