The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:2)
Over the decade that we’ve struggled to help my son John, and now that we face a different crisis with my daughter Maggie, one of the things I’ve noticed about Isaiah 9:2 is that the people walking in darkness were walking.
They were moving. They weren’t standing still, flailing helplessly and wailing, “It’s too hard!” or, “I can’t take this!” They were going on with life in that darkness, trusting that God had not forgotten them.
God never forgets us. No matter how dark life seems, we need to keep walking in his path. When we can’t walk, we can crawl. We can grope our way along. We can go an inch at a time, if that’s all we can manage. Because when life is grim, the only real choice we have is whether to move closer to God or further away from him. Move closer, at whatever rate you can.