Is This a Dark Night of the Soul?

A book from Pastor Bob Breckenridge’s “book table” that I’m reading for the second time is The Dark Night of the Soul by psychiatrist Gerald May.  He clarifies the “dark night” as not necessarily a time of pain or despair, but of liberation that takes place in hidden, mysterious ways.  He begins by saying:

“When people speak of going through a dark night of the soul, they usually mean they’re experiencing bad things. . . I must confess that I am no longer very good at telling the difference between good things and bad things. . .  Some things start out looking great, but wind up terribly, while other things seem bad in the beginning, but turn out to be blessings in disguise.

"I was diagnosed with cancer in 1995, which I thought was a bad thing.  But the experience brought me closer to God and to my loved ones than I’d ever been, and that was wonderfully good.  The chemotherapy felt awful, but it resulted in a complete cure, which I decided was good.  I later found out it may also have caused the heart disease that now has me waiting for a heart transplant.  At some point I gave up trying to decide what’s ultimately good or bad.  I truly do not know.

“Although not knowing may itself seem like a bad thing, I am convinced it is one of the great gifts of the dark night of the soul.  To be immersed in mystery can be very distressing at first, but over time I have found immense relief in it.  It takes the pressure off.  I no longer have to worry myself to death about what I did right or wrong to cause a good or a bad experience – because there really is no way of knowing.  I don’t have to look for spiritual lessons in every trouble that comes along.  There have been many spiritual lessons to be sure, but they’ve been given to me in the course of life.

“One of the biggest lessons – and another gift of the dark night – is the realization that I’m not as much in control of life as I’d like to be.  This is not an easy learning, especially for take-charge people like me, people who think they can – and, more important, should – be in control of things. 

“Each experience of the dark night gives its gifts, leaving us freer than we were before, more available, more responsive and more grateful.  But they don’t arrive until the darkness passes.  They come with the dawn.”

Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the Lord and rely on his God  (--Isaiah 50:10).