Tonight, I’m wearing a black puffy coat, a black beanie, and the massive black gloves I bought for a past journey to Antarctica. The black soles of my rain boots have sunk into black sand. The sun set here in Iceland hours ago. I’m swallowed by a black sky over black water, but I couldn’t tell you where one starts and the other ends. Without my headlamp, I can barely tell where the waves stop in front of me.
Low-slung sheets of translucent clouds frame white stars as lines of white foam march and slide toward me. With 17mph winds, the “feels like” temperature on my Dark Sky app measures in the teens. The sea is exhaling on me like it just ran a race to the sand where I now stand.
I did not run or race here. I had wanted groceries and drove my camper van to the nearest town. When I heard waves from the parking lot, I ventured over a dune to find this beach. Instead of returning back to where my camper would park for the night, I chose to confront my fear of night beaches.
And I hoped for an encounter with God.
With my “Desert Devotions” playlist filling my earbuds, I inched toward the water, taking breaks to absorb the ambiguous collection of darkness around me. A few minutes later, Jeremy Riddle’s “Holy Ground” played. His lyrics instantly reframed this moment as holy—personal and special. This sounds weird; but I felt seen, even though I couldn’t see much. I don’t know how to explain this, but I got a sense that this encounter had been scheduled—that I was on time. Alone on the beach, I understood that I was the only one invited, that the RSVP wasn’t sent to the wrong person.
Then, in the very next song, Cory Asbury’s voice promised, “There’s no shadow you won’t light up, mountain you won’t climb up, coming after me.” A lump clogged my throat, and my eyes blinked moist against the breath of the sea. No light appeared. No mystery unraveled into clarity. I wasn’t choked up by an answer but at a physical invitation to faith.
I have no more answers than when I walked onto this beach. I have more question marks than periods on the sentences of my life. I don’t know why university pediatricians can’t find what’s wrong with my friend’s daughter. I don’t know why the church ecosystem of my youth now worships injustice. I struggle to process the endemic trauma that has befallen women close to my heart. I’m still living in the mystery of suddenly becoming a dad for a teenager after 19 childless years of marriage. My counselor is still helping me wrestle my dysfunctions into submission. Even with my love of statistical analysis, I don’t know how many hours I’ll work next year or how much income I’ll make. I still struggle to envision a world with fewer dictators, fewer refugees, fewer sex slaves, fewer bombings.
Tonight, I hope that those victims feel a kind, unseeable presence, too. Frankly, I hope evil feels justice waiting for them in this very same darkness. I hope sovereignty won’t just win someday but tomorrow. I hope this blackness is just a veil for a beautiful dawn. On this beach, wrapped in wind, I feel something bigger than hope, more substantial than yearning. A sprig of faith strains against the wind. A star-sparkle of light pierces the darkness.
I walk in this darkness with “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” I have access to the source of all light, the genesis of all triumph, the fountain of all good things. His rivers flow in the night. His waterfalls pound boulders whether tourists watch or not. His tides rise and fall without intervention. His purview surpasses my imagination.
He dispatched the light of that pin-prick of starlight days, weeks, or months ago to meet me on this absorptive beach. This second.
I exhale. The wind swallows my clear breath. The sky absorbs my thoughts of gratitude, of worship to the God of light who created darkness. I turn to walk toward the glow back over the dunes. I’m ready now to sleep, to dream, to rest even if under blankets of uncertainty. I’ll see the sun for less than 25% of the day here tomorrow, but that will be enough.
—
Photo captured only with headlamp.
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Postscript: on my first Sunday back from Iceland, the exact beach where this encounter happened appeared behind the lyrics on the big screens. Of all the beaches that could’ve been shown, only Vik’s made an appearance—guarded by its iconic rock formation. (I was a little late to get my phone out to capture the drone flyby.)
