Belonging

I got to spend this past weekend at Carolina Beach with Drew and some of our Duke Lutheran students. Despite still being in some pain, it was pretty great. 
[p.s. i seem to be turning the corner in the pain department. the last two days have been much better. thanks for all your prayers. if you don't know what i'm talking about, read my post from last week.]

The theme Drew chose for DL this year is "Belonging," and we focused on it during our sessions over the weekend. It's been an interesting idea for me to process, as the past two years have brought such changes for me that I haven't always known where I belonged, or felt like I belonged where I was. Or, worse, I've struggled with knowing that I do belong in a particular place, and feeling like I'm not good enough to be there.

On Saturday morning our friend Aaron led the discussion, and his topic was "We Belong in God's Marvelous Light." Several of his points really hit home with me, and I'm still mulling them over:

- At one point it was discussed why we might not want to be in the light. I suggested that it's because you can't hide when it's light. All is exposed, everything is made known. That's not a comfortable thing. Sometimes we prefer darkness, because we can keep our secrets hidden.

- Then, he talked about the Creation story in Genesis. In the story about Adam and Eve we read that one of the first effect's of sin is that, no longer feeling like they belonged in such close proximity to their Creator, Adam and Eve hid from God.  God had made them to belong in that place, to belong with Him, and rather than stay in that light, they hid in the darkness

Then Aaron said two things that really stuck out to me:

It's lonely to walk in darkness.
It's hard to belong when you're hiding.

Yeah.

The cost of keeping our dirty laundry from being exposed in the light is banishing ourselves into darkness. The downside of hiding from what we don't want to face, is that we can't be where we really belong.

God has called us to something greater.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9)

I'm definitely not good at exposing myself to the light. In the short term, hiding is generally more comfortable for me. But let's be honest, darkness is not where we belong. My soul craves the light, it wants to come out of hiding. My heart is restless.

I need to be in His marvelous light.