In the Shadowed Places: Finding God’s Nearness in the Midst of Our Pain
by Heather Lobe Johnson
In the Shadowed Places:
Finding God’s Nearness in the Midst of Our Pain
by Heather Lobe Johnson
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is something about the Advent season that brings to mind the complex interplay of light and dark. As I enter the week of Christmas, after a hard year of my own grief, I am thinking again about what the Light really means to us in our darkness, and it reminds me of an art class I took during my final semester of college. This class also happened to be during the same time my body and mind began to process a really hard situation I walked through the previous spring. In the midst of my depression and darkness, I didn’t realize how much that art class would transform the way I see the world.
We called our teacher “Z.” He was a short man with glasses and a warm laugh. We sketched vases in the studio with our pencils and brought watercolors out with us to a creek near the art building. We went to a Boston museum for a field trip, and I sat in front of a painting for hours, mesmerized by the story it told as I wrote about it and sketched from its inspiration.
I learned how to let go of perfectionism, as I swept curves across the page in figure drawing. I let go of my desire for an exact image as I painted abstract shapes. I especially loved the way charcoal felt when it got all over my hands as I got lost in my projects. The art swept me away, and at the close of class or lab time each week, I snapped out of my trance and saw my arms and fingers and clothes dusted with color. Finally, I found myself making something and doing something that was separate from the hard and ugly pieces of my story.
The homework was the best medicine—hours of time focused on minute details and rich shadows. I began to see dark and light in the subjects around me, and I was drawn to the contrast.
Our final project required us to pick any medium and create a large piece that would take a certain number of studio hours to complete. I decided to create a triptych—a work created on three separate panels but tied together through a common theme.
I envisioned a forest—thick and overgrown with trees. On the first panel, I wanted it to be dark, almost pitch black with the faintest hint of light through the trees. In the second piece, the light could come forth a bit more as though dawn was unfolding, and I planned to introduce just a little bit of faint color. The third piece made me cry even as I thought about it. I pictured a sun, gloriously bursting through the overgrowth, spreading color and light everywhere.
I spent the last few weeks of the semester on the cold cement floor of the studio with these three large pieces of thick paper spread before me. I started with the first piece. Black, black, black charcoal—I pressed darkness from the top of the four-foot panel to the bottom, sparing the one-inch border around the sides. Slowly, I used an eraser and chalk to call out the trees. There they were, hidden in the night. I shaped them and drew in leaves with more layers of dark shadow and left the piece with a heavy sense that this was where I was. I was in the thick of the forest, consumed by darkness. The black charcoal covered me while I worked and lingered even after I washed my skin.
The second piece played with the dark of the first forest but began inviting color. Subtle greens and browns helped me create the sturdy oaks, and a little blue started to peek between trees for the sky. It reminded me of the earliest part of the morning when my family used to go camping. Sometimes I’d wake up before sunrise when it was still too dark to see. I’d unzip the tent and squint as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. But there it was, like clockwork, steady and reliable: the sunrise. In the cool and quiet of morning, before the birds even awoke, it was just me and the sun. Just a hint of light and warmth coming out to greet me.
The third piece was the hardest for me. Washed in color and a bursting light, it almost blinded me as I finished carving out the sun through the trees. This piece made my heart ache. Could I ever get there? What would it take to feel that kind of hope again? In our class’s critique, Z suggested that the third piece felt more like a caricature or a photo of the sun than reality. He suggested I tone down the brightness and soften the edges of the light. Someone else suggested that the triptych could work in reverse—light to dark. But I didn’t want to re-order them, and I didn’t want to soften the hope either. I was already in the darkness. I wanted to cling to that light and move toward it.
Even in the midst of my anger, numbness, and sadness, something deep inside of me wanted to believe the idea that hope could be attainable. But for the time being, I found myself in a shadowed place.
Often, while working on this piece, the familiar words of Psalm 139 rose to the top of my hurting heart, and I remembered God's words:
“Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” (Psalm 139:12).
Even in the darkness, God is light. Even in the darkness, God is there with us.
In the years since that art class, as I’ve moved through the landscape of my life, I’ve traversed through dark forests, soft morning dawns, and bright open spaces. But the place I feel God’s nearness most is in the shadows. In this aching, groaning time of Advent, as the world longs for Christ to come and we anticipate his birth, I think again about God’s nearness in the dark.
Psalm 91 walks us through this concept, emphasizing how God’s presence in the shadowed places is more of a biblical truth than just my own subjective experience:
“One who lives in the shelter of the Most High will stay in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’ Surely he will rescue you from the fowler’s trap, from the destructive plague. With his feathers he will cover you, and under his wings you will find refuge” (Psalm 91: 1-4).
Similarly, David calls out to God from a pitch-black cave after his escape from Saul in Psalm 57:1:
“Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed” (Psalm 57:1).
I love these images in Scripture of shadows being a place of God’s comfort and care, rather than a place for us to fear. I also love the promise that the danger and troubled times will pass.
I think of Mary with Joseph, her belly as full as it could stretch, going house by house and inn by inn, just trying to find a place with the light on--a place to settle in the night as her labor pains began. I think of the shepherds and the Magi, each with their own stories, thrilled to see the brilliance of one shining star guiding them forward. And I think of you, as you read these lines. I wonder if you’re wandering through the thick forest veiled by night, or if you’re in a time of quiet grief… or anger… or loneliness. Maybe you, too, long to see just a glimpse of the Light.
In art, as in life, darkness and shadows create contrast and depth. They remind us of our need for the light and help draw our eyes to the spaces where light brings relief, enlightenment, and dimension. When we find ourselves in the darkness of long-suffering, there is comfort: God is near us in the shadows, for shadows are impossible without the presence of light.
Finally, may we find comfort in this: In Christ’s coming, he is named in prophecy (Isaiah 7:14), and in actuality (Matthew 1:23), he is our Immanuel. Immanuel, “God with us,” does not say “God is only with us in the goodness.” He is God with us—in the aftermath of divorce, in chronic illness, in financial troubles, and in church hurt. He is God with us in praying over wayward children, in the long years of grief after the loss of a loved one, and in our deferred dreams. In all that we face, his name is a promise that he is our constant, our refuge, our source of strength—even in the darkness and in the shadowed places.
A Prayer for Us:
Dear Lord,
Have mercy on us, as we walk through our dark places, oh Lord. Thank you for the reminders that you overcome the darkness, yes, but also that you are with us in those shadows. Please pour balm into the deep, dark aching of our hearts. Remind us how you are near to us even as we stumble through our forests and caves, through the heaviness of this world. We pray for the day when the sun bursts through the trees and we revel in color and light. But until then, be our Immanuel. Be our Light and refuge in the darkness.
Amen.
Art: from Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence, by Caravaggio, 1609
HEATHER LOBE JOHNSON
Heather Lobe Johnson is a writer, artist, and worship leader who believes God can redeem the most broken parts of our stories. Heather has published pieces with (in)courage and The Way Back to Ourselves, leads monthly poetry challenges on Instagram @loved_letters_, and is working on her first poetry book, Take These Ashes.
Heather loves spending Saturday mornings at home with French-pressed coffee in the mountains of Roanoke, Virginia, where she and her two boys live. She would love to connect with you on Instagram @heatherlobejohnson where she frequently shares poetry and prayers.