Darkness | The SHE IS Awakening Seasonal Journal | WINTER - Week 4

The Susan Beth Podcast - Purpose, Intentional Living

Happy New Week friend. This week's focus from the Winter Seasonal Journal is called DARKNESS.

With this focus title alone I know many of you are counting down the weeks until Spring HA!

But here I am showing up inviting you to be present in the season you are in. I ran in a store yesterday and I don’t know why I should be used to it but I genuinely am surprised when I find myself surrounded by seasons and celebrations months away.

And it reminded me, that one of the reasons it’s so hard to remain and stay present and be content in a season is because everything around us is trying to pull us ahead to what’s next.

So thanks for being here. Thanks for choosing to be intentional about your days and the way you desire to live the life God your creator created you to live.

I mentioned early on when talking about the journal this season that I am well aware the darker color scheme and the weekly focus themes aren’t necessarily inviting to many of you. I joked about how my melancholy personality always loved watching sad movies just to cry my eyes out. Yet I will admit even though I love a good cry I’m no different than you in that I would never willingly choose a hard season to walk through.

My hope is that this week's focus will help reframe the darkness we all navigate when walking through a winter season of life. Because no matter if we would choose it or not…we are going to experience them.

We tend to associate darkness with evil and fear, yet the truth is, deep and sometimes beautiful things happen in the dark.

I can remember as a child laying in bed in the dark and hating the silence the darkness seemed to amplify. I think I’ve mentioned before how even years later when I was much older sharing a room with my younger sister and I would leave our bedroom door open so the light could peek in and she would get up and close it so it would be totally dark and I would get back up and open it and this would continue until one of us eventually gave in or fell asleep. Ha!

I love how the message version reads from Psalm 139 verses 8-12

I love this passage so much! I have found this to be so true. That there is nowhere I can be that God is not there. And I have found that in the dark moments of my life, his light shines brighter. And the intensity of the brightness is perfect. You know how sometimes you walk in a room and the light is so harsh you find yourself squinting or when you grab your phone in the middle of the night and the glare of the screen (which is horrible for us) feels blinding… this is not the love and light we receive from God whose light and love is always perfect towards us. He knows when we are sitting (or laid out) in the darkness that a spotlight or high-intensity beam of light is not what we need. The comfort of the soft glow of a candle is more than what is needed… a light flicker of light is almost hard for our soul to take in those moments. In time our eyes (and soul) adjust and we are able to take in and receive more light.

I’ve found the light revealed and seen in the dark is even more radiant because it’s not competing with anything else in our vision.

Here are a few prompts to pray, process, and journal about…

Are you afraid of the dark?

Does sitting in silence settle you or make you anxious?

Do you find it hard to believe that you are truly never alone?

The darkness will try to convince you and I that we are alone and that no one sees us.

But if you remember anything from this week's focus may it be that you are never alone, beautiful one… even in the dark.

*****Credits*****

Winter Journal: - https://amzn.to/48baCCC

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Intro & Outro Music Credit:

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com - License Free

Background Music Credit: Alexander Blu
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