Two weeks ago I gave the backstory on my tattoo, those four words etched into my right foot.
If you’ve read my book, Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between, then you know the depth of darkness I’ve lived in, the spiritual warfare battles and the swirling mist that I’ve walked through. You know the importance of the phrase inked in black. You know about the depression.
It’s all right there, forever in print for anyone to read, right there in chapter seven: darkness & light. It’s messy and ugly and dark but it’s the truth. It’s one piece of the story of how Light always overcomes.
A little bit of chapter seven is below, an excerpt and a free printable and a short video. You can order the book and read the whole thing, of course, and that would be super great. But you can also catch up on all the chapter excerpts here, because why not.
Even If Not // chapter seven: darkness & light
“The Hebrew language reads right to left. This is important to me because the tattoo that was scratched into my right foot says four little words in the English language:
Out of darkness, light.
But when you read it in Hebrew, when your eyes see those words and you go from right to left, the very last word your eyes will land on is light. It is the closest word to my toes and so with every single step I take, light is guiding the way. I am stepping out of darkness into light.
Over and over His Word says these words, and so when I sent the translation of the phrase taken from a verse in the Old Testament to one of my religion teachers, I was floored when he replied, “As with everything, context is key. But the translation you have says literally, ‘from the midst of darkness, light.’”
And then I cried.
In the midst of the hazy mist of questions and sickness, in the broken and lonely places, when I feel small and unseen and my heart is torn between here and there, in the darkest of nights, He is there.
In the swirling dark, I clung to the promise that Jesus is the light of the world and so although I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, because Jesus was with me I was walking through the dark with Light holding my hand.
In the darkest night, there was still light.
You know, light always comes because Light always wins.
The night can be holy too, but we still light the candles and hold our breath, keeping watch through the night for dawn to break. It will. It does.”
Video & Free Print
“Jesus is good and gracious, mighty and merciful, power and promise. Even in the times that feel wild and vast and unsure, He is there.”
This print is available for exactly zero cents. Just subscribe to the blog {click here or on the image below} to receive the print above + eight others!
