Passing Through the Dark Tunnels of Life

When Jan and I lived in Europe we traveled by car when air and rail travel was not an option. Driving across the Alps and entering a tunnel that is several miles long was a very strange and unnerving experience. Most of the tunnels in the United States are short – you can see the end. The European tunnels are so long you cannot see the end. It is like you have entered a dark hole with no hope of exit. Spatial disorientation can take place causing a person to lose their ability to orient themselves to their surroundings.  Claustrophobic feelings also come to visit when you are speeding along in a car in such a confined space while under the massive belly of a mountain range.

Today, I thought of those tunnels and some of you who are traveling deep into emotional and spiritual tunnels. These are intensely dark places where your faithfulness has committed you to a course of action where no way out seems possible.  It feels as if it all could close in on you at any moment. What was once solid and knowable is now closing in on you like a tunnel. You feel caught in the grip of emotional spatial disorientation and claustrophobic feelings within the confines of your situation.

Your only way out of this situation is to keep driving forward in faith. There is no reverse. The end of the tunnel is coming though it is not yet visible. Stay within the lane of hope. Hope will guide you through these strange and uncomfortable feelings.

When you finally break out of this dark transit you will move into the bright day of a completed season. The feelings that accompanied you in the dark tunnel will no longer have the ability to influence you because you will have finished the safe passage that was promised when you first set out on this journey.