Darkness

I am a dark person. I think I was born this way, but the dark side of my remained latent until puberty. I have dark dreams at night and dark thoughts continually creep across my mind during the day. In the past when I was feeling more creatively inspired, I wrote a lot of dark poetry. I've been on and off anti-depressants. For awhile, I didn't want anything to do with them because I felt like they stifled my creativity. I'm not on them now because I finally see the advantage to my dark side. I feel like my darkness makes me better at counseling the confused, hurt, angry, and dark adolescents that I see every day at work because I have the same turmoil inside myself. When they share their dark sides with me, I don't have to fake empathy. I really do understand. Over the course of my life, I've had many theories about why I must fight this internal battle with darkness. As I start to feel more comfortable in my job (miracle!), I'm starting to think that God knew that my battle with the darkness would help me reach the people I work with in a more real way than I could reach them without the ongoing internal experience I have in myself.

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. --Hebrews 13:20-21

Sometimes God's equiping isn't what we'd expect to see, but He works ALL things for good (Romans 8:28), even those which Satan intended to put in our lives to harm us (Genesis 50:20). Sometimes when we beg Him to change aspects of ourselves or aspects of our lives, He says no. We have to trust that God knows what He is doing and when He says no it's because He has a bigger plan that we may not be able to see. Satan would have us get so caught up in the no that we become closed off to God's calling on us. Don't let Satan win.

Posted by Kim at October 25, 2006 11:39 AM