Into the Light

This year’s rainy season has been extremely rainy. It came late and for a time we wondered if there would really be a rainy season at all. Normally the rains come with increasing frequency starting in November and then peak in January, tapering off in April. Technically we are at the peak of the season, but this peak seems to be a bit taller, steeper, and pointier than those seasonal peaks in recent memory.

The skies hang heavy over Pucallpa most days with little to no sunshine. One may not see the blue of the sky for days at a time. Rains fall intensely in the wee morning hours and then taper off at daybreak. Some days the rain sets in at dawn and keeps up a steady drenching intensity that lasts throughout the day. The runoff finds its way to the creeks which groan under the load of water they must channel to the larger rivers. The volume of water that reaches the main waterways is staggering and occasionally is much more than they can bear. The rivers become monsters of unrelenting power that swell outside their boundaries and become a nightmare to anyone living near the level of their banks. Recently whole communities have lost their homes as the crest of water swept away everything they had and held dear.

Rainy season cloaks the jungle in a mantle of gray, everything dripping with water, the ground saturated and giving less resilience than a dish sponge. Mud is the order of the day and it coats shoes, sidewalks, floors, rugs, car seats; forms the floor of trails and yards, and is the ever-present nuisance that makes everything a little harder to do.

Today Dena and I flew to Lima to take care of some necessary ministry business. We had boarded the plane at 6 AM in the midst of that rainy season muck and downpour. Our flight took us high over the top of the Andes Mountains, far away from the jungle mists. We stepped off the plane into bright sunshine. Lima is on the desert coast of Peru and it never rains there. February is summer and there was not a cloud in the sky. The colorful radiance of everything we beheld seemed to be almost surreal. It was like stepping into a beautiful photograph where everything is bright and perfect.

 

The experience of this migration from darkness to light was truly interesting. It was as if someone really had turned on the lights. For me it immediately illustrated what happens in a life that comes into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Where there was only darkness and “rain” the light now shines. Everything that was dismal and depressing now comes into brilliant clarity. Traveling to Lima we had come out of the darkness and gloom and into the glorious light. Jesus, through His shed blood purchased our forgiveness and has brought us into the light of His loving presence.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  2 Corinthians 4:6

Come into the Light. Let Him illuminate the misty gray and dark areas of life!