'EVEN THE NIGHT SHALL' BE LIGHT...'

It was light passing through a prism and breaking into a rainbow.

By Marilyn Perkinson

THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE CAN STRAY BEYOND GOD'S MIGHTY, TENDER CARE, because there's never a moment spent apart from Him. More and more, people discover how prayer makes them aware that God's help is always available. That reliance on God can pull them out of danger, ill health—any and all types of limited or unhappy circumstances.

But what if you're confronted with a situation that seems too devastating and irreversible to have any truly permanent and healing answer? Actually, that feeling has been around for quite a while. Psalm 139 describes it—while at the same time providing the counteracting truth that God is ever-present: "If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee" (11, 12). And along these lines, Science and Health poses a question well worth a lifetime of deep consideration: "What cannot God do?" (p. 135).

When I received a call telling me that my 18-year-old son, PJ, had collapsed following a strenuous workout, I identified with what the Psalmist meant, that "surely the darkness shall cover me." I was told that my son had not survived. As you might imagine, this was a moment of indescribable shock. It was also an intense moment of choice. Life felt suspended as I found myself considering divergent paths. In that moment I realized I could let the injustice, pain, and despair I felt welling up in me take over—maybe break me down permanently. Or, I sensed, I could rely on divine Love so fully that I'd pull into my human experience a might and capacity not of me, a spiritual power that would enable me to go on.