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

Of Beauty, Bears, and Roosters

I blog to you for the first time in Moldova! I have spent seven days in the village of Durlesti, just outside the capital city of Chisinau. So far, I have experienced many firsts: my first time being frisked by German airport security. My first time accidentally locking myself in a closet. My first time smelling moonshine. My first time running through grape vineyards. My first time being one of around 35 people in a church-van-sized city bus. 

As I left Montana last Friday, all I could think about was God and you. Numerous times I told God this summer, "If I get to Moldova on time, it will be a sheer miracle." I knew my journey was a living miracle: humanly impossible. As I buckled my seat belt and looked out the window, I thanked God for person after person who is partnering with me on this journey. More than once I hoped that I wasn't dreaming, but I knew that my steps and surroundings were vibrantly real. As the plane lifted off American soil, all I could do to hold back tears was whisper, "Grace, grace! Grace, grace!"

Grace, grace. "This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes" (Psalm 118:23). 

At this point in my journey, I have a tripartite view of Moldova: beauty, bears, and roosters.

OF BEAUTY. Moldova is beautiful. It has a different kind of beauty. It's not crammed full of pristine buildings and manicured yards; it's full of ornate, paint-peeling gates and weathered trees, rolling hills and roughly hewn rocks spilling over from abandoned houses. It's spattered with packs of wild dogs. Flower markets spray the sidewalks with blotches of color. Roads out-rut the best work of a jackhammer, and fences are concrete walls framing houses. Eye-blinding sunrises alight on miles of grape vineyards to where they meet the horizon. Raw beauty makes you stare. And stay.

But more beautiful than the landscape are the people. Faces telling stories. Wrap-headed babushkas leaning on stone walls while their turkeys feed. Old men walking their goats on hillsides' dirt paths. Stylish young women briskly walking through the city center. Young men stopping to smoke on park steps. Mothers holding their children's hands on a walk to school.

The video below is one I took in an old Russian Orthodox church. I walked in during what I think may have been an infant baptism. All ages were present in the church, from newborns to the elderly. The chanting of the priest was beautiful, the devotion of the parishioners, striking. In a country in which people have little, some cling to tradition in order to bring a sense of stability.

OF BEARS.  Much bear-imagery surrounded the beginning of my trip. Call me a literary person if you want--it's true. I accept the designation. But when I see iterations of symbols, in literature or elsewhere, I take notice and evaluate for significance. Walking into the Bozeman airport, I noticed bear-themed adornments in keeping with Montana-style decorations. On the plane from Chicago to Munich, the movie I began watching was all about bears. Partly because I was intrigued by the number of bears I encountered, so to speak, and partly because the ill child behind me was coughing violently every twenty seconds, I took the time I could have been sleeping to reflect on bear-imagery. Bears are often a symbol of bravery. I smiled inwardly. I could use some bravery right about now, I mused. Later, walking through the Munich airport, the girls and I stopped to congregate around some postcards of bears catching Atlantic salmon. By that time, bears had even come up in conversation several times.Waiting there to board the plane to Chisinau, I reflected again on the sudden influx of bear-imagery in my life. And then probably the most obvious connection hit me: my middle name means brave. And not just brave: it means, literally, brave as a bear. Why had I not thought about this before? Jesus, I prayed, make me brave. For days--weeks, even--leading up to those flights, my excitement had overshadowed any anxiety I could have experienced, and when I uttered that prayer, I still felt a thrill of adventurous excitement and a sense of purpose, knowing that I am walking in what God has for me. But even though I couldn't currently feel it, I knew that I needed bravery--at that moment and in the future. Because all the enthusiasm in the world is no substitute for solid confidence in Christ.

I have needed bravery on several counts so far. I began my first Russian lessons this past week. I keep mixing up the words for "city bus service" and "Russian nesting doll." I have met so many people that I can't keep their names straight--and they have difficulty keeping mine; if I say my name without a rolled r, they think my name begins with an a. I have begun supervising the education of the Raatz daughters, and in the coming weeks I will begin bringing some type of English lessons to the women at Freedom Home. Being in the presence of the Raatzes and the Freedom Home women is to me a privilege and an honor. I have so much to learn from all of them. I frequently pray, God, I love these people, and I love this place. Please keep me brave.  

I'm not the only one who's feeling the need to be brave. The people here are, too. And those with the light of Christ aren't just feeling the need; they're embracing the challenge.

These people are brave. The brothers and sisters in Christ who were baptized yesterday at the Romanian church shared stories of how God rescued them from a hopeless past and revived them into a richly hope-filled future. In the same land in which they wallowed in despair, they are brave enough to now thrive in His life. The women at Freedom Home are glowing with the radiance that results only from a changed life in Christ, and their exuberant smiles and willingness to engage in life are testaments that the power of Christ is stronger than the power of death. Their God-imputed bravery gives them the courage to face each day with Him. The missionary family with whom I live demonstrates incredible daily bravery, living cross-culturally and embracing people with the knowledge that God's gospel re-creates life in the darkest of souls. When I hear 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, I think of the Raatz family and other missionaries: "We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ."

OF ROOSTERS. Let me dispel a myth: those who believe that roosters crow only or especially when the sun rises are mistaken. Sadly mistaken. Or rather, I was sadly mistaken. Roosters are a neighborhood garnish around here, crowing at all hours of the day and night. I do not have a picture because I have only seen some once--when I tried to climb up the back wall of the Raatzes' yard. And I fell right off. 

Oh, and I forgot: I experienced my first time falling off a wall.