Thursday, February 9, 2012

In The Dark

The following is a true story:

Nighttime... heavy footsteps crunch the sun-baked ground outside...
It's been about an hour now since I first laid down to sleep. Yet, I'm certainly not one wink closer to seeing the back of my eyelids, it's too dark for that anyhow. What's more pressing than the darkness though is the fact that there is something outside, possibly very close now, closer than I'd like in any case. I begin to dwell on the defenses of my dwelling: closed off from the outside world (check), walls thick enough to repel the large gorillaish animal that sounds like it's stalking outside of the safari tent I'm inhabiting tonight with two fellow interns (not so check).

I tell myself "Don't be so paranoid, there are no gorillas in South Sudan, or Mundri town anyway". That's when I felt the breath; the hot, sticky, stinky breath close to my face... whatever it was, all we were seemingly separated by was the fabric screen in the tent, and a thin mosquito net.

Sheer terror.

Uncertain amount of time (infinity I'm sure) later I muster up the courage to turn on the light on my watch, which in this darkest of environments emits enough light to make a fair area glow pale blue. Laying right in front of me... is my fellow intern Jordan, who I had forgotten had moved his cot up against mine earlier that day, and must have rolled over in the uncomfortable sweatiness that is part of many nights in South Sudan. I can now fall asleep, comforted, if not feeling altogether ridiculous.

This memory shocks me (no... not because it involved a gorilla, I still don't know what was crunching the ground outside, but who really cares, haha) In the matter of one night I had completely lost my bearing on my surroundings, and feared for the worst when I could not see. This is so true of many things in my life, when I can't see what is before me, I start to panic, perhaps more subtly than that night in the tent. I don't trust God to protect me, to provide.

One thing is true though, He has never let me down, never broken a promise, and guides my steps, even when I am holding a hand over my eyes. I want to write more, but I have a headache.

Trust God, he loves you.