God is so like these everlasting hills. When my life is as open and sunny as clear skies, I have no difficulty "seeing" God or believing in Him, even sensing His Presence. I can see how He is acting in my life. I praise Him for all the good things He has done for me - all the wonderful people He has placed in my life, all the events which have helped me which I know He has had a hand in, because He intervenes so positively for me, His child.
When I am clear-headed and open-hearted, I sense God's magnificent Love, His everlasting beauty. Like the beautiful, beckoning Boston Hills, I feel Him beckoning to me, drawing me closer, until at last I will know I am surrounded by His Presence. Yes, on a clear day in my life, I can see forever, with shining faith that God and Heaven are real.
But my life can turn dark and obscure in an instant. My shining faith can be so easily tarnished. Someone I love dies, and my heart is ripped into tiny pieces. Someone, or even I, develops a life-threatening illness and I am consumed by terror and anxiety. I or a loved one cannot seem to overcome a devastating addiction or a draining mental illness. Where is God now? I no longer can sense His Presence. My heart and my prayer are dry and lifeless. Where is the God Who has intervened in my life so often? He is covered by darkness, no longer available to me, no longer interested in me - at least that's how it seems.
But our God is the God of Light and Darkness. No matter how often we are convinced on clear days that we "know what God is doing," our God is so powerfully beyond us that what we observe is only the tip of the iceberg of God's ongoing work for us and in us. We might think of our trials and tribulations as "dark nights of the soul," but the reality is that God is always operating under cover of darkness. In fact, God IS darkness - how can we ever totally know God thoroughly this side of heaven?
Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite mystic, said once "People would be surprised if they knew what their souls said to God sometimes." Did you ever stop to think that there is an active life of your soul that goes on beneath your awareness? That God and your soul converse in your "spiritual unconscious"? That is the darkness where God is completely present all the time - in the hidden depths of your soul. That is the beautiful darkness where He quietly, gently leads you, guides you, slowly frees you from the paralyzing anxiety and self-doubt and fears and sadness that hold you back from living your life "in the clear."
I remember praying and praying to receive the strength to diet, actively choosing diet plans, starting and stopping a hundred times. Then suddenly one day, I lost my compulsiveness for emotional over-eating. My spirit was at rest. I hadn't done anything! God had done it for me. God had slowly quietly worked in the dark, hidden depths of my soul, preparing me to be free enough to diet. In the same way, over the years, my attitudes have slowly changed, I've grown freer, more able to see God at work when my life seemed sunny and clear and also when my life was a dark turmoil. I've come to believe and trust that God NEVER stops working. He is always with me.
Like those blue, beckoning Boston Hills, God always beckons us to come closer to Him. Those hills are there, even when they are obscured by clouds, by rain, by darkness. In the same way, God is always there, whether we can "see" Him or "see" His work or not. You'd be surprised if you knew what your soul is saying to God this very minute. Surprised and glad and at peace. God loves you. He lives in you. He brings all things to the good for you. He always has, He always will, on both clear and dark days.