Deluged by Light

I remember it well. The heart was red, semi-transparent, and pieced together with small, circular pieces of flexible plastic:

My last nightlight.

Growing up, I never thought of nightlights as decorations; they were necessities. My collection of nightlights ran the gamut from kiddie to classy, fitting every occasion and outlet. As a young child, I hated the dark and could not sleep in it. When staying overnight at hotels, I would leave the bathroom light on and the bathroom door open so I could garner some shuteye. 

As I grew, I outgrew my need for light at night. In fact, I outgrew it to the point that in college, I could fall asleep in a fully-lit room. But that may not be the most commendable habit.

What’s your sensitivity to light?

I have spent nearly four weeks in Moldova, and I have been trying to keep up my running. The time of day most accessible to me for running is the morning. Just before the sun comes out, I lace up my shoes, leash up Britta (the large, beautifully-furred German Shepherd), and head for a nearby grape vineyard, one of many in the area. Moldova is well-known for its grapes and its wine, and the vineyards span many miles with interlacing dirt paths.

Oh! –Important sidenote: Chișinău is filled with dogs. Whether pets or strays, dogs are everywhere. The first time I ran, I stopped along the hillside and turned toward the city just to listen to the dim roar of barking in the valley below. The second week I was here, I decided to take my camera with me on one of my morning runs to capture a few seconds of cacophony. If you get motion-sick, I won’t ask you to watch this video—just listen rather than watch because I used one hand to hold the camera and the other to repeatedly attempt to pull Britta towards myself as she barked at the neighboring dogs. 

This is average noise-level for the morning walk from house to vineyard. Some mornings, the dogs really get going.

 Consistently, only a few minutes into our run, the sun rises and spills light over the vineyards and into the city. I am often blinded by its brightness, squinting, ducking my head, and shielding my eyes as I try to navigate around ruts and rocks. 

I’ve been thinking about light lately. Not only because I run at a time of day when the sun threatens to sear my retinas but also because I’ve been reading about it in the Bible, praying about it, and feeling that God is stirring me to pray for light to shine on this city and this country—in a spiritual sense. 

I feel like I am surrounded by light-in-darkness. I live in a Christ-centered, love-filled home—across the street from neighbors who have audible, violent, drunken bouts. I visit the home where women’s lives have been transformed, the haven in which they have found restoration—located in the middle of a city in which trafficking is still thriving. I ride the marshrutka (routed taxi van/bus) inches away from people whose faces are darkened with exhaustion and spiritual hunger–and all I can do (due to my currently meager Russian vocabulary), is silently stare into their faces and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to them.   

Are we sensitive to the light? Do we perceive its power?

One morning last week as I ran, I began to pray for the city. I sensed God leading me to pray that His light will be poured out on the city. I prayed that the city will be overwhelmed with light. Flooded by it. Deluged by light.

Scripture makes frequent mention of light, using the word light or a form thereof over 250 times (in the NASB). Light can literally mean light itself; for example, when Psalm 139:12 says, “Darkness and light are alike to you,” the word for light indicates a literal brightness of sky. 

Sometimes light is intended in a nonliteral sense. For example, Psalm 119:30 says that “the unfolding of Your words gives light.” Light here is used in a causative sense, meaning that it illumines both literally and metaphorically, that it cannot only brighten but enlighten.

 Light can symbolize different things. Elsewhere in Psalms, light symbolizes life (36:9); in Isaiah it symbolizes glory (60:1-3); in Matthew, holiness (5:14); in 2 Corinthians, truth (4:6); and in James, love (1:17). The Trinity and the Christian with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit are also characterized by light. 

So when we pray for light in a Scriptural sense, our prayers are not limited to requests for literal brightness. Light instead entails many of the pure and reviving attributes of God Himself. When we ask for light, we ask God to bestow a portion of His essence.

As I ran and prayed for light to pour on the people of Chișinău, I asked God to give me His heart for the people and to help me understand their plight. At that point, something strange happened. 

Instead of praying in third person (God, help them to…), I began praying in first person:

God, give us hope. God, restore us. God, awaken us. God, give us light.

And as I prayed for light, a faint, recurring melody began to play in my head as three words kept coming up in various forms and different sentences: Hope. Restore. Awake.

God, give us your light. Your light brings hope. Your light restores. Your light awakens.

After my run, I continued to pray for the people of the city to be bathed in the light of Christ. Later that morning, I read chapters 8 and 9 of Isaiah, and verse 2 of chapter 9 caught my attention: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” 

This prophecy has been fulfilled through Jesus; He is the light that people see. Do the people of this city know? Do they know the name of Jesus apart from orthodoxy, apart from tradition, and based on His personal history with them? What is their sensitivity to His light?

Reading Isaiah 9:2 that day was the final straw in a series of light-related occurrences that begged expression, so I began writing. What came out was a prayer looking a little like the beginnings of a free-verse poem in which I tried to reconcile the prayer God was praying through me for the people that morning with the content of Isaiah 8 and 9. Although it’s not finished or polished, I’ll share part of it below:

Our feet-palms slap the ruts of dirt, the interlocking sun-cracked roads leading to miles of here.

Our hands grasp the vineyard pails, plucking grape and garbage, wiping sweat-streaked strands of distressed tresses.

Our eyes glint with the blaze of the morning, squinting into the immediate distance.

We are moving to nowhere, and we are shattering.

We gird ourselves; yet we shatter.

We secured ourselves; but we are shattered.

We are broken. We devise plans, but they are thwarted.

We are hard-pressed and famished. We are hungry and we curse.

We have no testimony. We consult the dead on behalf of the living.

We want You to be all we fear. We want You to be all we dread.

We bruise and smolder.

Gardener to our bruised reeds,

Bellows to our smoldering wick,

You un-bend and fuel.

Bring on us Your strong and lasting help.

Hope—hope us, life us, stand us.

Hope us in, life us through, stand us up.

Awaken us.

We walk in darkness.

We run in darkness.

But there will be no more gloom. There will only be One to fear.

We will see a great light.

Join me in praying for the light of life to blaze in Moldova. 

Illumined,

Renée