Things always seem worse in the middle of the night. There is a vulnerability that doesn’t exist in the light. During the day, you can distract yourself with people and responsibilities and work. But in the night it is just you and God; just your heart hammering against your chest and God whispering to your soul.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. (Psalm 139:11, 12)

There have been so many tests and decisions this week and some big, scary unknowns. But they are all known to God. This darkness is not dark to Him.

This darkness is exactly like light.

We didn’t think it was cancer. There was a whirlwind of tests, and everyone was being so kind and upbeat and cheerful, and she was so young! But it was lurking in the back of our minds, and it had been lurking in her young body for quite awhile.

She sat on the table with her paper gown grasped awkwardly around her. We were talking about where we would eat lunch afterwards. We were holding back the fear. The doctor came in and started speaking, and it took a few moments for the truth of his words to hit us. I jumped up on the table and held her from behind. And now the fear was in the room with us and we could no longer hold it back.

Marissa was just telling me the other day about how when she was a little girl and she had to do something that scared her, she would repeat Psalm 56:3 over and over to herself. “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” In her little mind, the repetition of this simple truth was enough to allow her to do the hard thing ahead.

And so we are repeatedly speaking truth to ourselves so we can do the hard thing ahead. God isn’t telling us we won’t be afraid. God is telling us to trust in Him.