When ranting against and questioning God, I tend to forget that the darkness I am struggling against, trying to see through, or just sitting in weeping in, could be from God-it could be God. God created darkness for a reason.

In the beginning, He separated it from the newly created light-insinuating that perhaps He created it or it simply pre-existed the creation of the world. He wielded it against the Egyptians when He was breaking their will and freeing His people. He clothes Himself in it when speaking to Moses. But, I would submit that He uses it most often to contrast the light, His goodness.

In Isaiah 45:7, the Lord says that He in fact creates darkness and light, prosperity and disaster. Is it too far then to assume that God brings or creates disaster or darkness in my life in order to immerse me in His light and goodness. After all, how much would I appreciate His goodness until I have experienced His darkness?

I have truly experienced some of the darkest darkness of His Providence-not only is the darkness impossible to see through but it's terrifying and painful. His darkness may cause me horrific amounts of pain and bring me to the edge of my sanity with the terrors I experience immersed in it. But there is always starlight, aleays; there is always a glimmer of hope.

To place me in complete and utter darkness would be a death sentence-what God does to those who reject Him. No matter how pitch black my circumstances are, there is always starlight. I may be freaking out or weeping too much to see it. I may assume that I'm damned but like the old adage says, "it's always darkest before the dawn." From a more reliable source, Psalm 112:4 says, "Even in darkness light dawns for the upright."