The Longest Night

Tonight is winter solstice: the longest night of the year.

It certainly feels like it.

In fact, it feels like we’ve been living in the longest night for awhile now.

Waiting, in the darkness, for the light to come.

Today, in my part of the world, we were told, yet again, of more restrictions. Just in time for Christmas. Another cautious Christmas, another subdued celebration. Another take-home turkey dinner, perhaps. With each new wave and each new variant I keep waiting for us all to wake up from our collective dystopian dream. But the night keeps going, this longest of nights.

To celebrate this solstice I light a single candle, and repeat the words that have become my mantra this advent season:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Outside the curtained windows, freezing rain falls menacingly to the ground – the only sound in an otherwise eerily quiet night. It’s as though even the weather is conspiring to keep us locked up and hidden away at a frozen distance.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I remind myself that I have been through long, dark nights before. This isn’t the first winter solstice, and it won’t be the last.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I remind myself that I have been through the darkness of divorce. Fear, anger, despair, loneliness, depression, brokenness. None of these have left me unscathed. But none of them have been able to stop the sun from rising again.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Morning will come. The sun will rise again. I know this to be true, but even so, in the persistent darkness it’s a truth I can easily lose sight of.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Maybe this is why we light candles in advent. Because it’s easy to forget the light when you’re overwhelmed with darkness. But even in the longest and darkness of nights, the flicker of a solitary flame is proof there is hope.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Hope is the last thing ever lost.

– Italian proverb.

Header image by BBC Creative via Unsplash.