We were riding in a bus in Managua, Nicaragua and traffic started to slow down. Horns were honking and we could hear sirens getting closer.
I heard someone say “He’s dead.”
We looked out the window and traffic was stopped behind a fallen motorcycle and a man lying face-down on the ground.
I was horrified. I felt physically sick. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen a dead body outside of a funeral. I said a short prayer, not really even knowing what to say.
Then someone said, “That’s pretty normal here.”
That made me feel more sick to my stomach than what I had just seen.
Maybe I’m a naive 22-year-old who has unrealistically high hopes for the world around me, but I hope and pray that death and destruction never become normal to me. Not to deny the reality that we live in a broken world full of darkness, but to acknowledge that light is stronger than the darkness.
Our natural bodies are really good at adjusting to the environment around us. In the darkness, the pupils in our eyes dilate to allow us to better see the world around us. The longer you are in the darkness, the easier it becomes for you to see without much light.
The same is true spiritually. We can allow our spiritual eyes to adjust to the darkness of our fallen world, but I want to choose to be in a place where I can’t do anything, go anywhere, or see anything except by the light that is Jesus Christ.
