Eclipse of the Son

                August 21, 2017 was one those days that will always be etched in my mind.  That was a day when the world stood completely still for just a couple of minutes in Middle Tennessee.  August 21^st was a solar eclipse that passed through the area.  At the peak of the eclipse, I stood there listening to complete silence.  All the dogs in the yard, the chickens around house and the people watching all had a common thread, they were completely still and quiet.  The outside temperature dropped drastically during that period of time.  All of the automatic lights came on to light the darkness.  And for just a brief moment in time the sun had disappeared from the world.  The solar eclipse was in full effect in my life.

                An eclipse doesn’t only happen to the Earth, it can also happen to Christians on a spiritual level.  We walk in the light and feel the warmth of Jesus shinning all around us.  We go through life without even thinking about the possibilities that Jesus will not be shinning down on us.  And gradually the Son starts getting blocked out and we start to lose the Light.  But we continue to carry on with our life as if nothing is happening around us.  We are too consumed by the things we have to accomplish to realize that our world is getting darker. 

                Finally, the Son is gone from our view and the darkness has taken over our lives.  Everything gets very still and quiet.  We no longer have the desire to keep moving forward.  We are frozen in place.  The warmth from the Son has vanished and we are left in the cold.  We start to look for light from any place.  We turn to man made lights to replace the Light of the World and go off in the direction of those lights just to feel normal again.  We try to feel the void in our lives with anything that might give us temporary happiness.

        

              The solar eclipse only lasts for a short period of time.  Middle Tennessee averaged two minutes of total eclipse.  A spiritual eclipse doesn’t have a time table.  We can be without seeing the Son for a short period or it could last years.  We never know how long it will take for the Son to reemerge in our lives.  And when the sun starts to reappear from behind the moon, it makes a beautiful picture of a diamond ring.  That same picture describes the Son as He is allowed back into our lives.  Our soul is presented with the diamond ring and the promise that He was always there waiting on us to emerge from the darkness and back into the warmth of his Light.

                It has taken me several months to realize that I was walking in the dark.  My personal eclipse started over the summer of 2017.  I watched as my father-in law was being weakened by cancer.  His body was not responding to the treatments or the medicines and he was growing weaker by the hour.  Finally on August 11 God called him home.  I didn’t only lose my father-in law but I also lost a very dear friend.  The height of my eclipse happened in December of 2017.  It started out on the first day of December when my grandfather’s body finally grew too weak to carry on.  He was one of my mentors and one of the people that I looked to for help in many areas.  The darkness continued as Christmas came and the realization set in that two of the people I loved dearly would no longer be with us.  My soul was in a cold state and my life was filled with man made light.  I would sit in the church pews but my mind was everywhere else.  The spiritual eclipse was in full effect in my life.

                Thank you Jesus for always being there when I was in the darkness.  You are the Light of the World and as You reemerged from the darkness, I saw the diamond and received Your promise that You will always be there when I’m in midst of the darkness.  Lord I pray for anyone that is going through a spiritual eclipse.  I pray that they remember the promise that You are always there and that they find the Son light.  Amen