The light doesn’t go on until you walk half way down the stairs.
I started down the stairwell in my brother’s Istanbul apartment. They live on the fourth floor Turkish style of a large apartment building, fifth floor American style.
It was dark in the stairwell and I stepped cautiously into unfamiliar territory. Just as it was about to overwhelm me, the light came on. I smiled and rounded the next corner, walking with a bit more confidence. Sure enough – the light went on just as I was beginning to doubt it would. It was then I remembered the ‘system’. The lights are on a system and won’t go on until they sense movement.
Everyone who knows the system knows that you have to begin to walk in the dark! If you stop in frustration and fear the lights won’t go on.
You have to keep moving.
I had to step out in the dark in order to walk in the light.
It’s a picture of a life of faith. What my sister-in-law, Carol, calls “visual theology” — seeing God and faith illustrated in the world around me.
All we have is the truth we know, if I walk in this truth than I grow more confident, more truth – more light is revealed.
In this season of empty nesting my husband and I are looking at some possible changes in our future. We don’t know exactly what this will look like, we are in the dark. We step forward hesitantly and in faith. And our prayer is that just as the light in the stairwell of an apartment building in Istanbul goes on as we move forward, that a light will go on to light our way.
But we start by walking in the dark.
Picture – Walkway to the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey
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