A Prayer In Winter's Dark
When all this darkness fills up day and when the light-less moments feed off our souls,
May we learn to see the darkness not as a depravity of light but as a depravity of all the eye can see.
May we learn to see the darkness as a way to stop looking for outward things and a way to start looking inward. May this darkness bring you comparison not to bodily form, but to the shape of the soul.
May the enveloping darkness reveal to us all which remains unseen, the concrete fade and the abstract arise. May we see not the superficial of life, of ourselves, of others, but the depths and the worlds within each other.
May the darkness give not to moments where our thoughts are tinged with regrets, but to moments where we see patterns and movements, purpose and conviction invisible in the light of our lives.
May we learn to use the darkness as a time to use our hearts and not our heads to see the world, and in so doing find the light that was hidden before.
May this cold freeze our fears and turn our tears to light-reflecting prisms.
May it numb our heart aches and fill our lungs with refreshed life.
May this cold chill the gloating voices of guilt, the ugly taunts of shame, the puncturing nails of anger, the blackened hands of all judgement, the grits of impatience, and the hot coals of jealousy.
May these deep snows fill our paths not to slow our journey, but to slow our efforts to be perfect, to perform, to slow our pace, to calm our raging hearts, to rest our weary bodies, and in so doing rest our weary souls.
May the wind blow through us and not against us. And when it blows unhindered through a howling darkness, all those icy, chilled off corners of our hearts? All those places we haven't found the courage to let go of? All those patches of black ice dotting our souls? All those angry, tight-wound pillars of cold we haven't been able to crush but have ruled our lives with malice and hate, abuse and injustice, destructive mental health and depression? May the cold winds that blow this January take these places with them.
May we learn to feel the cold not as a thing of torment, not as a feeding ground for depression, but as a place where we can hear and see the silent exhale of all the toxic, all the harmful.
May we learn to see the darkness not as a place to fear, not as place where howling monsters arise, but as a place where we are free in the presence of the holy.
Love, Kayla
