Fighting Back the Darkness

Like any man, I've always wanted to find a battle worth fighting, good versus evil, right versus wrong, light versus darkness. Of course, also like any man, I automatically assume I'm on the right side of the battle. But, battles are tricky. It's easy to lose your focus and get spun around in the midst of the clashes and attacks. Blows seem to be coming at you from every direction. You feint to the right, engage a second opponent to the left, dodge backwards, dive forwards, turn, strike, block, plunge, turn, block,swing,rollturnswingdiveswingturnblock... and, if you're like me, you sometimes find yourself facing the wrong way, swinging at someone on your own side, attacking your comrade, fighting the right fight against the wrong people.

Olivia's lupus is a battle. It isn't just 'like' a battle, it really is a day-in-day-out fight for survival against the worst enemy immaginable. It's not exactly my own battle (though it feels like it sometimes), so I am generally able to keep enough perspective to fight in the right direction (generally). And, like the battles we like best to fight, this one is straight up light versus darkness, wrong versus right. How do I know? Because I feel it, because I know it, because it's obvious, because it doesn't (seemingly) align with the Kingdom of God, and because the Bible tells me so [John 10:10]. Lupus, like all disease, is a consequence of our fallen, aching, crying-out world. It isn't how things should be. Lupus is the enemy, and although God has allowed it to be part of our story as a family, Olivia's story as a woman of the Lord, and my story as a husband, Lupus is obviously a 'bad guy'.

Yet, how do you fight against an enemy like this? How do I war against sickness, fog, darkness, confussion, and the treachery of my wife's body against itself. I don't know why, but it reminds me of the parable of the wheet and the tares. When he hears the report of the weeds sown among his wheet, the Lord says, 'An enemy has done this.' Yet, he also commands that both be allowed to grow up together until the harvest. He allows the weeds to sap the strength of the wheet, to draw on their nutrients, to suck their strength from them, because he knows that this is the only way to protect the wheat. It will grow up struggling, but it will reach maturity. It will be stronger. It will be gathered in victorious.

That is probably a more accurate picture of this battle than the photo (below) I submitted to Olivia's site for Lupus Awareness Month, but this photo is a better representation of my heart in the midst of the battle. I want a weapon I can draw out, an enemy I can see (and not a shapeless fog peering out from behind the one I love, holding her up as a shield for its own malevolence), and beauty to defend for the glory of God, for what is right in His Kingdom, and for my bride. No darkness could be too dark, no blurring could hide the exposed edges, nothing could trip me up. I would gain victory for my Love, and risk everything I am to do so. I would never get turned around by satan's craftiness, I would never strike out at my wife in my fury at her illness or be wounded by her own attempts to fight this disease, I would never suffer defeat. I would push back the darkness.

Yet, in reality, sometimes I fail. Sometimes my arm grows weak. Sometimes the world is spinning and all I can do is grip my sword and wait for a clear target. But, sometimes, and more often as I grow in the Lord, in my love for my wife, and in my understanding of the foe we face, I take up my light and plunge ahead. By God's amazing grace and mercy, by His power and love, I charge straight into the heart of the beast, like Gandolf screaming, "You shall not pass!" and cut the monster to the core. In Christ, I become the good from which evil flees. In Jesus, I am the light fighting back the darkness.

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