What if Your Dark Christmas Tunnel Actually Led to Sunshine?

So there we were, in Middle Caicos, as I wrote in my last post,

having just discovered this special little monument of praying hands.

And now we discovered that the path suddenly ended.

Actually, it turned into a set of stone steps leading down into darkness.

We didn't know what we were getting into--just like you don't know what you are getting into 

when your path in life suddenly seems to come to a dead end

and then goes down,

and it just looks very, very dark.

I read a post a day or two ago called "When Darkness Falls at Christmas,"

discussing  the slaughter of the innocents when Herod tried to kill Christ.

"We too are caught in the cosmic crossfire of Christmas. We experience both 'joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory...' as well as burdens so great we despair of life itself ... Both are beyond our powers to comprehend because there is so much more going on in reality than we can yet understand.
When the deep darkness falls and never seems like it will ever lift again, that’s when we must pray for strength to comprehend what is beyond us (Ephesians 3:18), and trust in the Lord’s promises, not the way things appear to us (Proverbs 3:5). For this is what Christmas is all about: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

And so I stood there in the darkest corner of that underground tunnel, seeing only a stone wall, 

and a dark corner,

and darkness ahead.

But there in that dark corner, I stooped down, and this is what I saw.

There was something waiting for us there if we would be willing to keep going down 

those stone steps.

Sometimes we pause, as Jonathan and I did at the top of the hill and the cliff,

we pause in prayer.
No, we wait long in prayer sometimes.

We lift our hands to our God Who Hears,

but He doesn't seem to hear.

Instead, He takes us down a path that leads to darkness.

But what if we just kept going, 

and kept trusting,

and kept going on into that darkness,

embracing that darkness and pain --with Him?

With Him,

I have to share with you, that down at the darkest corner of your tunnel,

the steps you take forward into the darkness

lead to light!

It was like a miracle!

It was an experience I will never forget-

that dark stone wall, the dark tunnel underground leading we knew not where.

It led to this amazing sea cave.

It led to light and sunshine and beauty and the ocean of grace.

In  a whipstitch, we were pulling off our hot shoes and getting ready to hit the breakers and the foam and the waves and the sunshine!

Nothing could quite compare with those 15 or 20 minutes that Jonathan and I shared

in the beautiful sunshine, 

all by ourselves at that ocean beach.

We laughed and we played and we waded and we looked for pretty shells for our kids,

and we kissed when no one was looking, 

and we took a happy selfie,

and we reveled in the bliss of it just being us two together in the beautiful sunshine

at the end of the tunnel!

So if Christmas for you is not all twinkles and sprinkles,

and glitter and glitz and gaudy gifts,

if instead of laughter it's a time of the slaughter of what is innocent,
and only you can fill in the blank for that,
whether it is others blaming you for what you are not guilty of,
or twisting what you have tried to say or do in an effort to get out of the sword's way--

remember that God walks with us through that darkness.
He knows what is painful for us this Christmas season.
What if His purpose for leading us through the darkness is that we may experience the intimacy of a relationship alone with Him--
taking off our shoes upon holy ground,
basking in the sunshine of His love,
dancing in the waves of His grace,
and being held in the Everlasting Arms?

So this Christmas season, what if in the dark of our tunnel and the hopelessness of our stone walls,
what if we submitted to step through the darkness--
and discovered light?
What if we entered the unknown
and discovered that we are fully known?
What if we expected misery,
and instead experienced a miracle?