Sumter Pastor Clay Smith: Dark places...

Back in seminary, I made a visit to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. My reasons for making the trip were not pure. A cute girl was going, and I thought I might have an opportunity to get to know her.

Mammoth Cave is the largest known cave system in the world, with over 426 miles of the system mapped. I had never been in a cave before, but how scary could it be?

It was scarier than I thought. We were with a guide who led us through Grand Avenue, Frozen Niagara and Fat Man's Misery. I was much thinner then, but Fat Man's Misery was indeed miserable. I am not claustrophobic, but I was beginning to feel closed in.

We were in one of the larger rooms of the cave when the ranger guiding us told us she was going to turn out the lights. Big deal, I thought. I wasn't scared of the dark. Besides, this was the opportunity I had hoped for. Maybe the cute girl would be scared and grab my hand.

The lights went out. I have never been in such darkness. My eyes tried to adjust to the darkness to let the light in, but there was no light to let in. Whatever black is beyond pitch black, that's how black it was.

Maybe you have been in such a place. Maybe it was a literal cave, or maybe it was a stage of life or a crisis. I remember dark places when a girl I truly cared about broke up with me. There was a dark place when I came very close to being fired from a church I pastored. After a professor ridiculed me in front of a Ph.D. seminar, I walked out into the sunshine with my soul in darkness. The days my sister and brother told me they had cancer were days of darkness.

Everyone, I think, has his or her own story of a dark place. Adults who were abused as children carry that darkness. The man or woman who never wanted a divorce finds themselves walking out of court in a dark place. The day you get fired is surely a dark day.

We create some darkness ourselves. Addicts pile up in dark places. They have sworn for the thousandth time they will not go back to their addiction, but they relapse. The shame and guilt lead them back to the darkness of believing they are unworthy, unlovable and powerless. Other people cross a boundary and think no one will ever know. Then the secret comes out. Maybe for the first time, they realize their choices impact others and damage themselves.

If you do what I do, you see dark come upon people when they least expect it. I've been with the family when the Dad was told by the doctor that the tumor is inoperable. I've had to wake the woman who doesn't know she is a widow, but her husband has died in the night and is still lying beside her. I've stood beside the hospital bed of people in intense pain and had them ask me, "Pastor, when will this pain end?" That is a question from a dark place.

The dark places of the soul have a claustrophobic effect on the soul. Your flaws and miseries are magnified. You long for escape. People numb themselves in dark places so they do not feel. Suicide looks attractive in the dark; it seems like an easy way to end the pain.

What I remember in that darkness of that cave was a hand touching my arm, then making its way down to my hand. The other hand grasped my hand, longing for a connection, longing to know that someone was there.

There is a story in the gospels of Jesus reaching out his hand to a man who knew about the dark places. He was a leper, cut off from family, community and faith. His life was a dark place. But Jesus reached out his hand to say, "I am not afraid of your darkness. I will come to you and heal you and give you hope."

This is the great love of God - he reaches out to us. Our darkness does not frighten him. The blood of Jesus has covered over every darkness, and the resurrection of Jesus brings us light in our darkness.

That day, in Mammoth Cave, as the unknown hand held mine in the dark, I hoped it was the hand of the cute girl. Then, the ranger told us she was turning the lights back on. I blinked hard, and once more, I was in the light.

Turned out that the hand that reached for me did not belong to the cute girl but a macho guy who was part of our group. Even macho men get frightened in the dark.

On the way back to Louisville, the macho man and the cute girl rode in the back seat, holding hands. I wound up in the front seat with my friend, who was driving. The day, however, was not a total bust. I had been to the dark place, but I had come out to the light.

The Rev. Dr. Clay Smith is the lead pastor of Alice Drive Baptist Church in Sumter. Email him at claysmith@adbc.org.