So many people love this time of year. Autumn colours, pumpkin spice lattes, snuggly scarves, warm fires, falling leaves etc. It’s not my favourite season. I prefer Spring. The hope of good weather and the promise of longer days and brighter evenings. The only thing I love about this time of year is that I can get all my hats out and start wearing them again. I have quite a few. In fact those of you who have been following this blog for a long time will remember it was originally called, Just Another Christian Woman… talking through her hat.
As a kid, I hated the dark. My bedroom door had a glass panel above it and when the landing light was on I got the benefit of it. But it was always turned off when the last person went to bed. I often felt vulnerable once the light was off.
If everyone was asleep, who would hear if someone broke in? A fear of my home being broken into stayed with me for years; even now I don’t like to stay on my own overnight.
In my teenage years dark evenings meant I had to be in. I wasn’t allowed out after dark until I was 16 or so. Even then I had to fight for it. Until that great liberation, in the winter months, I’d run home from school, change out of my uniform and meet my friend. We’d do a quick lap of Tallaght, stopping off in the Town Centre to look at the make-up stall or visit the record shop, then run home to be in before the dusk curfew. When we were finally allowed out after dark, it turned out it was too cold to be hanging around the streets, (unless the was a boy to meet), so we’d end up in her kitchen or mine.
Sounds like a bit of a contradiction doesn’t it? I didn’t want the dark as a small child, but was eager to be out and about on a dark evening when I was a teenager. On reflection, I think darkness was ok, as long as was with my friend. I didn’t want to be out in the dark on my own. It’s darkness when I’m alone that gave/gives me problems.
1 John 1:5 says “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” If John had been Irish, he might have said, “there’s no darkness at all, at all.” No darkness what so ever. The closer we get to him, the less darkness there is. In a time of social distancing, it is such a comfort to remember that God is not distant. He is always with us. Not two millimetres away, never mind two metres.
Two things come from this for me.
1. I am never alone, God is always with me
2. If he is with me, there is no darkness at all (at all) 🙂
Thanks so much for all your encouraging comments and messages about my last post. I really appreciate it. It’s great to be back writing again after a long dry spell.
A x
photo credits 1. Mattiii photo The Long Shadow via photopin (license) 2. Annmarie Miles
Just another Christian woman... 
Yes ! He is always with me !! He IS Jehovah Shammah ‘God who IS here ‘……
Thank you for this reminder that I needed, as I am in a season of ‘aloneness’ after a marriage breakup, but I am NOT alone…..and the light always overwhelms the darkness.