The Dark Months Flatten Me

It goes down with the light and it comes back up in February.

You have watched this happen enough times to have stopped wondering whether it is a coincidence. It tracks the daylight closely enough that you could almost predict the week.

And for years you have been treating it as a fault.

Not in a dramatic way. But there has been a steady low effort to correct it, and the effort takes the form of things you should be doing, and the should is the part I want to look at.

You are not malfunctioning, and going down with the light has never once been a fault in the person it happens to.

Because this has become a second thing on top of the first.

The flatness is one thing. It arrives and it is uncomfortable and it is real.

And then there is your relationship with the flatness, which is a separate matter entirely, and which consists of noticing it, deciding it is not right, and trying to do something about it. And that layer arrives every year as well, and it is at least as tiring as the flatness itself.

I want to spend this article on the second layer and leave the first one alone.

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee

There is a line in Psalm 139 about darkness that does something unexpected with it.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. (Psalm 139:12, King James Version)

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

Now, notice what the verse does not do. It does not say the darkness will be removed, or that light will be brought in, or that the dark is really light if you look at it correctly.

It says both alike. Two things, neither converted into the other, and no difference made to God by which one a person is in.

You are not waiting to be moved out of one of them, and the dark half has never once been the half where God is harder to reach. Psalm 139:12 puts the two on level terms without turning either into the other, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman in November who has been treating one half of the year as a problem.

And the verse just before it is the one that gives this its weight, because it is a person talking about hiding.

If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me. That is somebody assuming that the dark is where they will not be found, and it is not said hopefully. It is said the way people say things when they have gone quiet.

And the answer is that it makes no difference.

You are as visible in the flat half of the year as in the bright one, and a person who has gone quiet has never once gone anywhere God could not see. Psalm 139:12 answers a sentence about being covered by saying the night shineth as the day, and the Holy Spirit is the one for whom the two halves weigh the same.

You are not less findable in the flat months, and a person gone quiet has never once been a person that verse could not locate. The Holy Spirit is the one to whom both are alike, and the written word answers a sentence about being covered by saying the night shines as the day.

And there is no instruction anywhere in it.

Nobody is told to get more light or to do something about the dark. The whole passage is descriptive. It is telling somebody where God is rather than telling them what to do about where they are.

You are being told something rather than being asked for something, and a verse about darkness has never once come with a task attached to it. The Spirit of God is the one who is described rather than the one issuing an instruction there, and the word states the situation and stops.

The second layer is optional

Let me be precise about the two things, because separating them is most of what this article can offer.

The flatness is not optional. It arrives with the light and it goes with the light and there is a good deal about that which is not under your control.

The relationship with it is optional. That is a separate construction, built on top, and it consists of a verdict.

The verdict is roughly: this is not how I should be, and a functioning person would not do this, and there is something to be fixed here.

You are able to drop a verdict without touching the thing it was passed on, and a judgment about a season has never once been part of the season itself. The Holy Spirit is the one who can remove a layer without removing what is underneath, and Psalm 139:12 describes a state without evaluating it anywhere.

And here is what dropping it actually changes, because I do not want to overclaim.

It will not lift the flatness. I am not going to promise you a better November and the light is going to do what the light does.

What it changes is that November becomes one thing instead of two. It becomes a flat month rather than a flat month plus a failing person, and the second of those is the one that has been making it unbearable rather than merely difficult.

You are able to have a hard month without also having a case against yourself, and a difficult season has never once required a verdict on top of it. The Spirit of God is the one for whom both halves are alike, and the written word makes no distinction between them and passes no judgment on either.

Go out in the dark

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately in the dark rather than in spite of it.

Go outside once in the dark and stand there for two minutes.

Not at dusk. Properly dark, at five or six in the evening in November, when the day has gone and the kitchen window behind you is lit.

You are able to go into the dark part rather than staying in the lit part, and two minutes outside in November has never once been time that anybody had to be brave for. Psalm 139:12 says the darkness and the light are both alike, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a woman stands in a dark garden.

Here is why out rather than in.

Everything tried so far has been a way of getting more light. Lamps, and going out at the brightest part of the day, and the various sensible things people suggest. All of it treats the dark as the problem and light as the correction.

Standing in it does something different. It does not fix anything and it does not pretend. It simply establishes that the dark is a place a person can stand, which is not the same claim as the dark being fine.

You are able to stand in a thing without endorsing it, and standing somewhere has never once been the same as saying it is good. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the dark half as fully as in the light, and the word says both alike without asking anybody to prefer either.

Two minutes. Then go back into the lit kitchen, which is also allowed and is not a defeat.