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For ten minutes, I stared at my phone screen in awe as friends across the country shared pictures of the northern lights dancing in the sky. I scrolled, captured by the wonder, until an image from my own town filled the screen and suddenly I couldn’t get outside fast enough. Pulling a sweatshirt over my pajamas, I slipped my feet into sandals and stepped outside, eyes up, eager and expectant.

There was no denying the crystal clear shot of pink stretching above my friend’s apartment rooftop mere miles away, a muted but still present surprise on a Friday night in Alabama. The northern lights traveled south, a sight many never have the chance to see, and my smile stretched wide as I hurried down the steps, ready to bear witness.

A deep, dark blue waited for me. Turning in circles, I pulled out the compass app on my phone to make sure that, yes, I was definitely facing the right direction. With hope still rising inside, I raised my phone to take pictures of what appeared to be an extremely ordinary evening sky. Maybe the colors would show when seen through the camera lens, I thought.

But still, nothing.

I waited, I watched, and eventually I turned to walk back inside. The sky above was its regular nighttime blue, and instead of a rainbow, the captured images show an oddly pixelated smear.

The wind caught my hair, strands blowing across my face, and I thought of my friend standing under the same sky. It’s wild, isn’t it? How two people can have a very different experience of the very same thing — a conversation, an illness, a celebration, even the northern lights. And it’s true, isn’t it, that grief can unexpectedly color a year and smear itself over absolutely everything yet remain largely unseen by the naked eye.

But as I zoomed in on the image, the strangest thing took my breath away. Two thoughts arrived in quick succession, one right after the other:

Man, that’s a bummer…

Huh, that’s kinda pretty though…

The tension of the two together surprised me more than the northern lights traveling south.

Disappointment and sadness understandably appeared, but curiosity and unexpected appreciation for the blurry beauty quickly followed. Like a pair of glasses with one near-sighted and one far-sighted lens, both had something to say but neither told the full story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer the rainbow and not the smear, the delight and not the disappointment. I’d rather receive the surprise of bright colors dancing in the sky than the deep, dark blue. After a decade of waiting and asking God to bring physical healing to a chronic illness… after thousands of prayers that God would restore the years the locusts have eaten… after hoping for a miracle for so very long… of course I’d pick that in a heartbeat, wouldn’t hesitate to choose the light and not the night.

What I’ve come to know, though, is that God is in the night too.

He’s present in the blur and the smear, holding us close in the surprise we didn’t want and would never choose, looking at us with kindness as we lift our heads and look up with hope, helping us see the beauty that still is and always will be.

Maybe one day I’ll see the northern lights and I’ll be so amazed that I dance below the dancing sky. Maybe one day the longed-for answer to long-prayed prayers will arrive. For now, though, the assurance that God is with us in both — bearing witness to joy that can’t be contained and grief that’s mostly unseen, with us as we weep and as we rejoice — is manna for the day and a refuge in the night.

Psalm 139:12 says, “Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” and Psalm 74:16 declares, “The days is yours, and yours also the night.”

Scripture is clear: darkness exists. But the repeated promise remains: we won’t face the night alone.

It may seem like we’ve been waiting for morning for a very long time, but we have not been left behind or lost, forgotten or abandoned. His eyes remain on us, His presence ever with us, no matter how deep or long or dark the night.

One day not too long from now, the “night will be no more” (Revelation 22:5). But for now, for today and tonight and tomorrow, we can rest assured that yes, joy is going to come with the dawn… but God isn’t going to leave us during the night.

He sees us, and He will sing us through the shadows until morning arrives.

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If you’re in a messy, blurry middle, I wrote this for you. Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between will help you shift from the suspicion that God isn’t kind or present to the truth found in Scripture: on every single page of the story, He is with us and working all things for good.