Seen A Darkness

"We have seen a darkness, but we have seen the light."

This marks the eighth year since our Asher left us to go on ahead to our Father in Heaven. While we continue to struggle some days and thrive others we have not lost sight of the light, the hope, the promise of eternity with Jesus. 

I borrowed the title of this post and the heading from John Mark Mcmillan's song "Seen A Darkness". The moment I heard the song it became a reminder to me of the truth that even though we have seen a darkness, even though we still do not understand why, even though the valley of the shadow knows our name, we have seen the light in our lives. We have seen Gods hand in our lives, we recognize his blessings in our lives though we know we deserve nothing short of death ourselves. 

Tonight before we set our balloons free, we stood in a tiny circle together and read some verses from the Bible and I prayed. During the prayer I cried and Heather cried which is normal, this time however Avery cried too. When I opened my eyes at the end her little bright eyes were waiting for me, smiling back at me through her tears. She seems to have an understanding about all this that surpasses her years. We know she has a special connection to Asher since they were twins and spent every moment together from the very beginning. Little North was so sweet after the prayer too, he seemed to be alright with being the only one not crying, he told us "I'm not crying because I didn't see Asher", and then he gave us a hug. We stood there all hugging for a few moments before letting the balloons free. 

As we watched them go Avery and North pointed at the sky, each claiming individual balloons that were their own, "that's me and Avery and Asher" "those two are you and me and that one's Asher". 

We watched until we couldn't see them any more and our eyes ached from straining to see, straining to follow. 

We have seen a darkness

But we have seen a light

We have felt the love 

Of a hope’s hot blood

In the machinery of night

We have seen a darkness

But we have seen the sun

We have come undone 

To a love’s hot song

In a symphony of blood

The valley of the shadow knows our name

We have seen a night 

But we have seen the day

Dressed in the blood of love’s hot veins 

We have overcome

Yeah, we have overcome

Born into the grave

But born a second time

We’ve been born again 

Into loves hot hands 

On someone else’s dime

The valley of the shadow knows our name

We have seen a night 

But we have seen the day

Dressed in the blood of loves hot veins 

We have overcome

Yeah, we have overcome

You have called us loved 

And you have called us wanted

One time we were bruised

We were bankrupt and haunted