Super Bowl Sunday is a reminder for me.
Of defeat. Of being on the losing team. Of an ending.
Four years ago, as the lights went out on another season of football, as one team walked off the field defeated and disappointed, all I could think about was how the lights had gone out in my life.
How I had somehow ended up on the losing team of mothers – the mothers who witnessed birth and death all in the same push. The mothers who lost a baby, a child.
I had returned home from the hospital that day, leaving the lifeless body of my baby behind. And I was just entering into a season of darkness.
I fell into bed, numb, feeling as if my future had evaporated along with the life of my child.
At some point I opened my Bible to the book of Micah, which I had suddenly felt drawn to as our stillborn baby shared a name with the seemingly obscure prophet.
As I stared blankly at the open Bible, a string of words suddenly caught my eye.
“Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light,” I read.
And I began to cry. For my baby. For my heartache. For this beautiful truth.
Not only was I sitting in darkness, I was being suffocated by it. And yet, somewhere in it was the promise that God would carry me into the light. That verse became the basis for my hope.
There was a long season of suffering ahead of me, filled with endless days of crushing sorrow. And yet, the promise of light remained. And it still does.
Sometimes life puts you on the losing team. Sometimes it leaves you sitting in darkness. Sometimes it hands you a season of raw and smothering grief.
But God has the ability to coach you through even the most devastating of losses. He promises a new season, filled with light and joy. A long season of grief will turn into a season of rejoicing.
Hold on to that promise. Keep walking even though you can’t see through the fog. Because one day loss will be restored to light.
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