The Darkness

It used to frighten me to drive home from my boyfriend's house on the dark nights. He lived about five miles away from any sort of civilization. Getting home required four miles of gravel roads, passing three farms and a graveyard, along with these two creepy lights shining from the gates of this house that was tucked away where you couldn't see. I don't know why those lights always bugged me, sitting there on the road like eyes in the darkness, waiting for me to pass. They never moved but it felt like they did. It felt like they followed me.
I wasn't the kind of person who thought about the dark much back then. But driving in it had this horrific effect. Now I live on the same road my boyfriend (who I married) grew up on, one house down, one house further away from the darkness.
And when we first moved, a sense of dread would come over me every time I had to crawl that car over the hills at night, through the cornfields with the animals and combines lurking somewhere across the vast unknown.
That's what unnerving about the darkness. It's the unknown. There are things you could see in the daylight that disappear into the shadows after the sun sets, and suddenly you're left guessing about everyday things.

I used to be afraid of the unknown things, too. I used to turn over carpets and open closet doors and shake out old suitcases trying to get answers to what had been hidden. I used to think there had to be answers to everything. And I used to die inside a little bit every time I realized again that sometimes there aren't answers. Sometimes you can't see what's ahead, and sometimes you just have to walk that way anyway.
So faith comes out in there, somewhere, I guess. And maybe that's all that's changed. Now that I'm 32 I don't fear the unknown as much. I just pull it in and embrace it. Yes, it's unsettling. And it's a fearsome thing to understand that darkness is a necessary part of every single life.
But so many things happen in the darkness that actually become spun and woven into beautiful things. Like chickens laying eggs, the world being set into motion, the seeds growing underground. The owl's lonely hoot, the crickets' song, the fireflies winking. The womb. Darkness all around, yet something being created. Something unknown, something unseen. Something wonderful.
I guess getting older has made me see all the things I fear don't always become what I feared they would. And I guess it's helped me see that God--who works in unspoken nights, who never sleeps, who knows all and sees all--does not want me to fear, but to trust.
So now I find there's this kind of wonder in driving in the dark. I head out of the city, away from the glare, and over my shoulder I see all of the things I knew behind me in the dim rear-view mirror. And ahead, the stillness of night. The fireflies, the owls, the beauty of quiet. And me, open heart, trusting the God who works His best in the dark.