Where the Light shines out

For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. this is why it is said:

"Wake up, O sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you."

- Ephesians 5:12-14

The people I work with have a way of bringing out the best in me and surprising me by grace, but there are days when they also expose dark corners of my heart that I hide from. Not only am I surprised when God's manifest presence shows up, a goodness that I cannot see in myself, but also the shocking violence and mean-spiritedness lurking within.

I want to be in control, but the disruptive noises, socially unacceptable behaviours, and apathy my clients exhibit are often beyond the reach of my control. I want my own way, but my clients have a will of their own that resists my spirit of demandingness and "behaviour management" techniques. I value productivity, and their inefficiency can can evoke impatience and irritability in my heart, agitation expressed across my face, my words subtly conveying contempt, "Why won't you do what I want you to do?"

On one particular week my work was growing increasingly stale, routinely stuck in a rut, with a deep feeling of helplessness and purposelessness. I was still fulfilling my daily routines of job coaching, training, educating, with the focus on community inclusion and independence, but was anything sinking in, was there any noteworthy, measurable, visible progress? I was frustrated with my lack of results, and a dark irritable cloud was hovering over me. A client of mine has half-jokingly labeled me "Cranky Frankie" or "Frank the Crank" (my last name is Frank!).

Near the end of the week I snapped at a client with a regrettable attitude of anger.  He replied with a pained expression written across his face, "I'm sorry, Dallas. I won't do it again. I won't annoy you. I don't want you to be annoyed with me." The convicting and convincing power of the Holy Spirit surrounded that place, I was unmistakably standing on holy ground, my heart laid bare before a Christlike face mirroring gentleness, meekness and mercifulness. 

What was I saying after all? "You're annoying, I wish you weren't here, my life would be better off without you."  The revealing words of Jesus reached down in my memory, "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open" (Luke 8:17). The grudge I was secretly nursing, the resentment I was carrying, the escalating violence hidden within, was now irretrievably open for all to see. I had nowhere to hide.

But humbly standing before this broken man of God who glows with such sincerity and purity of heart, I thanked God for His work of grace, the costly gift of forgiveness, and the mercy that's extended to me daily. Where else can I turn, but to the One who loves us most?

Leonard Cohen sang:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

The light poured in that day, but as a turn of phrase, it's also through those areas of brokenness that the light gets out.  I'm a little less defensive of those vulnerably exposed cracks in my life now. If there's one thing I've learned from people with developmental disabilities: we have nothing to hide before the One who sees it all, and still loves us with a fiercely unrelenting never-giving-up love.