Waiting in Darkness

It's dark, and I mean really dark. It is ridicuously dark. How can it be that dark? By now I should be used to this darkness, but it is just too dark. It doesn't seem right.

Daylight Savings is here again. Yipee. For most of the country, they love daylight savings in the Spring time. It means longer days, more sunlight in the evening, more time to play outside. Having lived 30 of my years in the central time zone, I too used to love springing forward an hour every year. I was all about saving the daylight. So I lost one hour of sleep. What was one hour of sleep compared to months of extra hours each day before the dark came upon us. Central time zone rocks!

Now I live in the eastern time zone. It doesn't rock so much. It means I wake up before most of America. And let me tell you, it is DARK when I wake up. Last week it wasn't so dark anymore. The sun was already beginning to rise by the time I got up and moving. Now, not so much. It is not natural to get out of bed when it is still so dark. It confuses my mind. The body wants to sleep in the dark. I get up, it is dark. I shower, it is dark. I pretty myself up, it is dark. I get my kids up, it is dark. We eat breakfast, it is dark. We walk the giant dog, it is dark. The kids wait for the bus, it is still DARK!

There they stand, at the end of our long driveway, waiting in darkness, waiting for the bus. Now granted school does start really early here. 7:30am is early no matter what time zone you live in. If you don't think so, then you are crazy. But is it still dark, and I mean very dark, pitch black dark, country back roads in the middle of the night dark, is it still that dark where you live at 7:00am?

We have a spotlight on the front corner of the house. There is one light that shines towards the road, and another that shines into the back. These lights are really bright. We leave the light on all the time. Why? Well, when you leave your house in the pitch black dark every morning, you need a little light to help show the way. Have you ever tried walking down a long dark driveway surrounded by woods and trees in the dark? It doesn't feel good. Monsters lurk in the dark. Evil spirits. Bad things. My children need the light to guide their path as they walk toward the end of the driveway where the bus will pick them up and take them away from home, away from safety, away from the light.

Standing in the darkness, they can always look back at the light, and know they are not alone. That even though they may surrounded by the dark, the light is never far away, and it shows them where safety is, where home is. It lights the path for them to follow as they make their way each morning, and it is still shining when they return each afternoon, reminding them to stay on the path towards the light. Please, children, stay on the path. Let the light guide you, and keep you safe from evil and harm.