"If I could just learn something of love as Jesus loved ..."

Who couldn't use more light, more clarity in a time of questioning? And if we are in the middle of our own search for light, it sometimes helps to hear the experiences of others who are finding "there ariseth light in the darkness," as the Psalmist describes it. This column records some experiences that may be useful to those who are looking for new answers. Unlike the other articles in this special issue, accounts in "Finding Light" are anonymous in order to give authors the opportunity to talk freely about earlier lifestyles and attitudes that may have been considerably different from what they now value. Of necessity, the recounting of experiences is telescoped in its time frame, and these narratives do not attempt to tell a complete story. But they do show something of the wide range of seekers and the way in which the light of Christ, Truth, restores, redirects, and regenerates lives.

The circumstances in which individuals turn more wholeheartedly to God vary widely. In my own case, I had just returned from my doctor's office. He had told me that the symptoms of miscarriage I was suffering would most probably result in the loss of the baby—a child my husband and I deeply yearned for. Years previously I had left my traditional Protestant upbringing and stopped believing in God. Having been taught that He loved us but sent sickness and misfortune so that we would learn to become more obedient, I didn't feel like loving or trusting Him at all.

Yet, with nowhere else to turn, I silently began to try to pray to this unknown God. I told Him what I'd been taught to believe and that I honestly did not know whether it was true or even if He really existed. The only thing that made any sense at all was that if He did exist and truly loved us, then in the long run He must want only the best for us. I began to be willing to trust Him. I thought of the words from the Lord's Prayer "Thy will be done." Whatever God's will for me and my child, I began to realize that ultimately it had to be good. I began to want more than anything else for His will to be done for us.

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