Morning Through the Shadows

I came across a quote written by J.R.R. Tolkien the other day. He said:

"You can only come to the morning

 through the shadows."

Now, I've read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy a few decades ago. So, I don't recall who said these words (they may not even be from a work, but spoken by himself, though I think not) but they ring true.

Similar to "it's always darkest before the dawn" and "...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil" (Psalm 23), they essentially say the same thing.

Tolkien's phrase caught my attention because of the word "shadows." These are the things we think we see, or presuppose, or assume, or pretend are there, or any innumerable things we can substitute for the words shadows. Shadows imply something that is there, but the very thing is unclear. Do we see what we actually think we see?

After going to bed thinking about these words, and how they apply to us -- all of us in all circumstances and walks of life -- I woke up in the middle of the night bewildered and half asleep.

I tend to wake up like this, startled, half-awake and bleary-eyed, only a handful of times a year. But, they almost always occur after my husband has been home with us (or on vacation) for an extended amount of time and then goes back to work, for 48-72 hours at a time. He had been home for days and last night was the first time I was alone again in nearly two weeks.

Well, sure enough, I woke up with a start, wide awake in the middle of the night. And my head was cloudy. The room was dark, but there was just enough light from our digital clocks for me to see the pile of pillows on the bed where my husband would have been.

Now, I knew my husband was gone. But, the way the pillows were situated and the way the blankets lay, it looked like someone was next to me! And again, I wasn't really awake, so I was a little bonkers.

I sneaked a peak at the shape next to me, scared out of my mind. My heart raced, "Who was with me?"

It took me minutes to convince my brain that no one was there, that it was only the "shape" of a person, the shadows of a person. And after finally reaching out to touch the pillows, I realized it was just me seeing things through the shadows, that weren't really there.

Then, I woke up.

I think often we fear what exists in the shadows, because in the shadows things aren't what they seem. Most of the time, our fears never materialize.  They're based on judging what we can see with our physical and often imperfect eyes without looking at it from an objective, neurological point of view.

It takes temerity to actually think that we know what we're seeing, half- awake and bleary-eyed, when the shadows engulf us and dawn hasn't yet emerged. It's foolishness, really. Because, by morning we see things for what they truly are and disparage ourselves for being idiots in the shadows.

It takes light to shed truth onto the dark. It takes boldness to hang on to faith when everything around us seems as shifting as the shadows that loom before us.

Coincidentally, my oldest son is reading the trilogy right now as some summer reading, before his junior year begins of high school. To even think about my son being a junior scares me because it means college in two short years. The shadows of uncertainty and the unreal "what -ifs" appear throughout my mind daily: Where will he go? What will he learn? Can I even handle the fact that he will no longer be my little boy that I can keep track of?

It's the morning we need to zero in on, not the shadows. Ground yourself in the light. The lamp that guides our path. I must dwell on this and ignore the pile of pillows and blankets that seem like an evil lurking, because it's all a false image of reality.

Shadows create misguided trust. Don't focus on the shadows.

Instead, remember that all light -- even the smallest amount-- destroys darkness at its core.

-HJS