When terror makes you want to hide


I left my computer about noon yesterday to work on a project in the studio out back. Last night when I came inside, I learned the sad news about the terrorist attack during the Boston Marathon. Our prayers here go up for all those touched by this tragedy, but especially those families who’ve lost loved ones or have someone fighting for their lives.

Years ago, my husband and I, along with our children, spent three summers ministering in a camp near Boston. In our time there, we came to love the people of the north shore, and only weeks before the events of September 11, 2001, we walked the Freedom Trail in Boston. With images of sites integral to this nation’s birth fresh in our minds, we found the freedom those places symbolized under attack one morning in September.

Acts of terror always seek to take away our freedom.

Yesterday, I tried to get the studio to a place where I could do some writing out there. Unused since last summer, it’d accumulated all manner of junk, and I prepared to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls.

When I heard about what happened during the marathon, the Lord brought to mind what my daughter, during a difficult time in her life, painted high on one of the studio’s rafters.
 
 

The Latin, “Et lux in tenebris lucet.”

It means, “Light shines in the darkness.”

Freedom is a light in the darkness. As fear tries to steal away our ability to gather in stadiums and cheer on our favorite team, to enjoy music in large venues, and to run marathons on bright spring days, we must not cower behind fortress walls, but determine in our hearts that the torch of liberty will continue to shine.

But how?

The apostle John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

In The Message, we find this translation, “The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out” (John 1:5).
 
Many families face the darkest time in their lives today. A shadow falls over the city of Boston itself, but there’s a light no darkness can put out--that inextinguishable light that is God.

The “Life-Light” Jesus knows a thing or two about dark places. Because he spent three days in a pitch-black tomb and rose resplendent, he enables us to live above fear. Yes, just as after previous terrorist attacks, we’ll be more cautious, we’ll cringe a bit during fly-over’s at football games, we’ll stand in long security lines at airports, and we’ll pray more, but we’ll also live as people who won’t let fear win.

I didn’t paint over my daughter’s writing today. I painted around it. Because when darkness threatens, I’ll see it and be reminded, “Et lux in tenebris lucet.”