As I sit and wait for the sun to set on my first day without you, it simply doesn’t come quick enough. Unlike the light, which grows fainter with every passing minute, my initial shock ceases to fade. The horizon has been transformed with color: from carefree light blues to the deepest violets, happy pinks to blood-red crimsons, from golden yellows that warm the heart to eventual darkness, blues and blacks so deep and inescapable they penetrate the soul. The heart longs for the warmth it so recently enjoyed, the spirit yearns for the days of carefree fun and happiness, but those times have flown away on the winds of dark and emptiness. The sudden chill in the air is one of unwelcome. The spring air has left as quickly as it appeared; however, it shall return again someday, gently blowing through the hair of the one I love as we bask in the rays of the sun that chases the darkness back underground, back to the places it deserves to be held, all the while waiting for another chance to show its despondent face. The darkness has always been a place I run from, a place of fear so gripping that there is no adequate language for the emotion I feel when it consumes me. Being pushed into the world of night is not for the faint of heart. Only the strong can survive the emotional turmoil experienced by those on the outside. Adjusting from light to darkness is no easy task, it is one that sometimes is never totally accomplished. My heartbeat is erratic in this new world, the suspense of the unknown overwhelms my body and causes my sensory systems to overload. All that is true and sincere in the light of day cannot be trusted in the shadowy emptiness of this foreign world. Is there an escape? When will my mind and body reequilibrate, allowing a peace and sense of safety not yet experienced in this land of unknown? At what point will I look to the black and unforgiving sky and see what has been missed until now...the unmistakable gaze of my savior. He sees all and knows all, in light and darkness He is there but….have I seen Him? Have I been too busy playing in the warmth of the light to even notice? He has been here all day, in fact, He has never been away. The eyes of the planet’s lover have floated about its creation since the beginning, overseeing all hours of daylight and all hours of night, but I haven’t seemed to notice. I can’t help but notice in this hour of darkness. Drawing from divine comfort, I make a sudden realization: this cycle is not complicated, it simply repeats. The night soon will turn to day again, and the air will lose its deathly chill. Darkness will once again be shut up in the underbelly of the streets and shops that line this planet of happiness; for in a short amount of time, there will be a new dawning of spectacular color. Gone will be the soul-piercing darkness, replaced by the glimmer of happy pinks and golden yellows playing off the window where I shall sit, gazing up at the eye of the almighty savior who I have come to trust more so than ever before. In the hour of sheer aloneness there was one that had not left me abandoned, to die on the cold, wet streets of heartache and doubt. Never will I forget the words whispered in my ear during those dark hours: I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you. They reverberate in my broken soul, filling in the missing pieces, closing the wounds of times past with such skillful craftsmanship that not even stitches remain, no evidence of the brokenness of my being. Rather, I am new. As I gaze out my window at the glorious colors dancing across the eastern morning sky, I am ready more than ever to face another day.