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liturgy
Dear God, my Heavenly Father, My heart
Dear God, my Heavenly Father, My heart is unclean, but you can purify it. My heart is full of darkness, but you can illuminate it. My heart is sad, but you can comfort it. My heart is wicked, but ... -
liturgy
Gracious God, we confess the darkness and cold in our lives.
Leader: Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another. All: Gracious God, We confess the darkness and cold in our lives. Like barren trees in winter, we d... -
illustration
The Darkness of Mother Teresa
Most of us know Mother Teresa for her stalwart ministry to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. But as with each of us, there is a public side of our lives and a private side. Mother Tere... -
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The Terrible Darkness of Mother Teresa
Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d... -
liturgy
Dearest Father, we long for light, but
Dearest Father, we long for light, but dwell in darkness. We crave the warmth of the sun, but crawl into our caverns of sin and sadness. We are a people who prefer the misery and melancholy that we kn... -
blog
One Dark Night: A Deeper Work of God
[These thoughts come from a journal entry of about 10 years ago when I was experiencing a deep and dark night of faith] I have found insight and wisdom for my journey with Christ in the writings of J... -
Quote
Spiritual persons suffer great trials, by reason not so much of the aridities which they suffer, as of the fear which they have of being lost on the road, thinking that all spiritual blessing is over ... -
illustration
Dickens on Dark Thoughts
The mind in all its intricate beauty can be a place of great anguish. Thoughts can both grip us for the good and plague us for that which is not. In Dickens’ Christmas novella, The Chimes, he describe... -
illustration
Beyond the Darkness of Their Blindness
One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred... -
Quote
Many deceptions only appeal to us because there is something inside us that "wants" to believe them. They are seductive because of darkness and wrong motives in our own lives. We must search... -
illustration
Darkness Sets In
Darkness. If you’ve experienced it, you know what I’m talking about. Darkness sets in long before we’re old enough to recognize it. It begins with anguish. We’ve been hurt, sometimes tragically, and w... -
liturgy
When we allow darkness to overcome the
When we allow darkness to overcome the light, forgive us, Lord. When we reduce Christmas to plastic and tinsel, have mercy on us, Father. When hardness of heart keeps us from seeing and hearing an... -
Quote
[The] soul went forth (being led by God) for love of Him alone, enkindled in love of Him, upon a dark night, which is the privation and purgation of all its sensual desires, with respect to all outwar... -
Quote
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God! -
illustration
The Silence of God
In the deeply moving novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, the protagonist, a young Jesuit priest named Sebastião Rodrigues describes in horror what it is like to watch two of his disciples, Japanese nationa... -
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Made to See
In her engaging treatment, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes both the beauty and pain of seeing our own sinful nature: It is often true that once we are made to see, we don’t like w... -
illustration
What Are We Grasping For?
Our culture is afraid of grief, but not just because it is afraid of death. That is natural and normal, a proper reaction to the Last Enemy. Our culture is afraid because it seems to be afraid of the ... -
liturgy
Inspired by 1 John and John 20
God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. But often, we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness. By doing so, we lie and do not live out the truth. We too easily claim t... -
liturgy
Adapted from 1 John 2:1-17
Holy God, we have not lived in the light. We have not walked as Jesus did. We compromise all too often, living both for you and for ourselves. Your word calls us to account and your Holy Spirit convic... -
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -
Quote
Moonless darkness stands between. Past, the Past, no more be seen! But the Bethlehem-star may lead me To the sight of Him Who freed me From the self that I have been. Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy... -
illustration
Light and Dark and the Enduring Metaphor
In 1998, Nick Cave, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of th... -
liturgy
In this season of Advent, we celebrate
Pastor: In this season of Advent, we celebrate that Jesus has come, and that He promises to come again! When He comes, He will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Mixed Loyalties Diving straight into 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 without giving a nod to 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:2 gives a strange impression, because Paul’s point... -
illustration
The Three Twilights
In the midst of an experiment to become more attuned to darkness, author and pastor Barbara Brown Taylor decided to spend time outside as dark sets in: According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, eve... -
illustration
A Light in the Darkness
“They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.” (Isa. 8:22) In The Two Towers , the second novel in Tolki... -
Quote
[If] your imagination of God is starved then when you come up against difficulties, you have no power, you can only endure in darkness. -
Quote
The truth is simpler… and more alarming. [This] is the end of religious experience, the very opposite of mysticism…. We have been going round the paths, and suddenly we see our path goes round a hole,... -
illustration
The Effects of Light Deprivation
Psychologists tell us that one of the most difficult conditions a person can be forced to bear is light deprivation. Darkness, in fact, is often used in military captivity or penal institutions to bre... -
Quote
Why must holy places be dark places?
![[If] your imagination of God is starved](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609743307371-9495ca150e6c?ixid=M3w1NzU0OTZ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxfHxJbWFnaW5hdGlvbnxlbnwxfDJ8fHwxNzEwNTM0MTMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&auto=compress&fit=crop&w=200&h=200)
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