Perhaps it is just the mood I am in, but remembering the holiday season just past brings joy and excitement. However, there is always the aftermath. It is a bit of a let down that comes at a season of the year when daylight hours are at a minimum and days are short and often gloomy.

I’ve been feeling ill for a few days and when I add that to the gloomy weather, it doesn’t take long to begin a ‘pity party’. Lack of sleep, a temperature, and then the short days and long, long nights are all inclined to dampen one’s spirits.

However, I just read my morning devotion and found it both refreshing and also a bit of a challenge.

The author spoke of the many lights in homes, on homes, and all over the city that are bright and beautiful during our holiday season and how suddenly, once again, it is a little dark and gloomy.

I found myself in total agreement, but I also found myself thinking in terms of darkness within my spirit.

The writer likened the dark of winter to a long dark hallway without light to brighten the darkness.

I found myself thinking that often the circumstances in our lives seem to emulate a dark hallway through which we are traveling and looking, longingly for the light at the end of this darkness.

Just as we turn on the lights when we arise in the morning, because the darkness of night hasn’t as yet lifted, sometimes, I think we need to turn our thoughts in another direction so that the darkness in our spirits is lifted and we see all the blessings with which we are surrounded.

From reading I know that it has been proven that the dark of winter does contribute to moods of depression and loneliness. But we do have opportunities to look beyond the dark and see the ‘light’ at the end of the darkness.

For one thing, we are never alone. We may feel alone but that is because we ourselves have forgotten the promise that “Lo, I am with you always.”

And sometimes in our need to be self sufficient, we forget there are others who are there to help and assist. Pride can be a real stumbling block and result in loneliness.

As I sit to write this, my family room is bright and cheerful. The daylight seems enhanced because of the snow outside the doors to the deck. I could close the blind, turn off all the lights and sit here in the gloom and bemoan the fact that I am ‘grounded’ because of illness and because I don’t want to venture out in snow, or I can rejoice in the beauty of the snow and the brightness that is streaming in the windows.

Just as the light streams in and brightens my room, so it is often necessary to stop focusing on the negative in our lives and refocus and redirect our thoughts to focus on the ‘good’ in our lives. 

Each and every one of us will have periods of sorrow, despair and trouble. I think that life almost seems to guarantee that. But…and it is a big but, it isn’t what happens in our lives but how we react.

Will we view this time as a long dark hallway we must travel with no hope of any light? Or, can we see that if we look for the light and focus and trust, we can and will walk through the gloom and emerge strong again?

I do not know the woman named Alma Barkman who wrote the devotion that turned my thoughts in this direction. I have read many of her devotions through the years and she seems to see life with all its up and downs and adds to it a trust that all is in God’s control. So, as I opened the book today, after a few days of feeling so bad and also feeling cooped up and a bit sorry for myself, I felt as though she wrote this piece just for me.

I hope if you are having a bad day, you will see as I did that in all times of darkness, there is light. God does walk with us always. He guides, directs, sustains, challenges us and never ever leaves us alone to walk through the dark passages of life.

When our spirits falter, and darkness seems to crowd into our souls, turning our thoughts to God can bring renewal, hope and the light to keep us moving ahead with trust in our tomorrows.