Autumn has just arrived in the Northern Hemisphere and I’m already getting twitchy about the imminent lack of light. Those of us who struggle with SAD symptoms can find ourselves at summer’s end mourning the diminishing daylight, while hating the longer, darker evenings and the realisation that clocks will soon go back an hour. But there is hope.
Because each season has its own beauty, its own story to tell, its own wondrous way of speaking to our souls. While we might deplore the lack of daylight hours autumn and winter present to us, we can try to deliberately aim to look for the positive in them as well. Every drop of encouragement we can find will help nurture our souls.
We could note the beautiful golden hues and observe the altering landscape with eyes of intrigue and awe, rather than anxiety and fear. We could remind ourselves that hope, joy, and light can be found if we expectantly search them out and ask for God’s help. Because the dawn will rise faithfully, as always, even if we prefer to hunker down and hide under the duvet… 🙂
“Not knowing when the dawn will come,
I open every door” — Emily Dickinson
Darkness and Dawn
Darkness scares me,
seeping into my bones,
these walls, this soul,
the landscape, this home.
Autumn arrives
like a swiftly fallen curtain
extinguishing the light,
making things uncertain.
What if I could
see beyond the black,
penetrate the dark,
seek to hold it back?
Is it futile
to want the light
to linger here, where my
soul is edged in despair?
Perhaps I should
remind myself to pause,
open up the doors, each
room of house and heart.
If we allow
our spiritual sight
to see beyond it all,
this gaping void,
perhaps we would
find a place of hope,
of renewed joy,
saturated with light.
Because the dawn
must be breaking
somewhere now across
the sleepy globe,
spreading its rays
of hope, its flash of fire
into our anxious hearts,
our sad and fearful souls,
where it warms us
up, cheers our thoughts,
as it reorients them
back to life—back to God.
And so I bask
in this golden glow of grace,
rising faithfully
day after day.
It will not pause
because light and dark
exist to make us seek
and live lives of fearless faith.
© joylenton
“Things grow in the darkness: seeds, bulbs, dreams, babies. Can we trust that if we dare to probe the darkness we may discover things about ourselves that we might prefer not to know, but need to learn?” — Margaret Silf, Compass Points: Meeting God at Every Turn
Some useful resources you can access to help alleviate the darkness:
- Inspiring bible verses about light and darkness from OpenBible.Info
- 7 Little Shelters In The Storm Mood Boosters from Courtney Carver
- Embracing Hope: Soul Food to Help Chase Away the Blues from yours truly
- Self-Help Strategies for SAD from Psych Central
- Soul Shots: 31 Days of Pocket Wisdom for Your Hurting Heart my latest (free!!) pdf ebook to download ❤
Poetry Joy 