2. Behind Life's Black Patches
If we let him, God speaks to us …. despite everything.
Matthew sat alone in his cell staring at the letter. Imprisoned in a country not friendly to Christianity, Matthew (not his real name) was kept in relative isolation, and the only contact he had with the outside world was in the form of occasional heavily censored letters he was allowed to receive from his family. If the letters had any words of encouragement – especially scripture quotations – they were completely covered over by the heavy black markers of the government prison censors.
In the long months Matthew had been imprisoned he had come to deeply resent those patches of blackness that cut him off from the love of his family. Until today. Now, Matthew looked at the patches of black obscuring much of the latest letter he had received and smiled. Matthew was a happier man.
The truth of the situation had dawned on Matthew like a personal revelation. He had come to see that the black marks and patches on his letters did not obscure his family's love for him – they highlighted it. He saw that every obscuring black mark was not a denial of the love felt for him, but proof of it. Sometimes he could guess that there was a scripture behind the black ink from quote marks not obscured at the beginning or end of the marking. If the censors blacked out words individually he could guess from a short word blacked out after the quote marks that it was probably the reference to a quoted verse in Psalms, which his family knew was his favorite book of the Bible. Very occasionally, if he held the letter up to what light he had, he could make out faint traces of what was written and have some idea of what was being said to him.
As time progressed, Matthew came to resent the black marks less and less. Sometimes he would take out a letter and just look at the marks, because he knew that behind them was the love of his family; and understanding what lay behind the black marks – even though he could not see through them – sustained Matthew until he was eventually released.
Sometimes, when we go through the trials of life, it's hard to see God's love for us. We may even come to resent the black marks and dark clouds of life: the illnesses, job losses, persecutions, or whatever seems to obscure God's love and concern for us. But if we learn to view them as we should, we can come to recognize what lies behind the black patches in our lives.
On occasion we may be able to make out the writing of loving correction in things that go wrong, and we should always be alert to this possibility (Hebrews 12:6). However, this is not always the case – often it may be that we are being given an opportunity to learn compassion for others or to grow in some other way. But we don't always understand the point of the things we are enduring until we begin to see that God's love lies behind them.
In fact, if we come to view the black patches of life as we should, we realize that once we have committed ourselves to God, we can know that his love is always behind the problems in our lives even if we do not see it clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). We can remember that every dark patch of life, although it might seem to obscure that love, in reality is being used to teach, guide, and form us or to somehow help others. We come to realize that the black patches of life do not deny God's love for us; they actually affirm that it is there.