the Longest Shadow on the Shortest Day

a Yearly Reminder of God's Faithfulness

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For parts of the Northern Hemisphere, December 21st marks the beginning of what often feels like a relentless and unforgiving season of bitter cold. This is a day that many bemoan — where the daylight is short and the night is long. The sun hangs so low in the sky that it appears to rise and set in the same place — as if it’s standing still. Earth tilts as far back as it can from the sun, only for a moment, however. But long enough that if you and I were to stand outside at noon, we’d see that we’d have cast the longest shadow we’ve ever had the entire year.

It’s also the day I was born.

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future, the place of caught breath.”

Margaret Atwood

I don’t know that I would have otherwise really paid much attention to the significance of the winter solstice. But, because it shares the same date as my birthday — I’ve come to think a lot about it.

In ancient times, the winter solstice was seen as the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun. Cultures worldwide would celebrate it — from East Asia to Northern Europe. For them, astronomical events served a practical purpose. Their lives were dependent on monitoring the seasons, especially as they sowed crops and stored reserves of food. I imagine that they, like many of us, looked forward to what the winter solstice sets in motion — the slow descent into summer.

Light comforts us. Warmth assures us. Summer is a time for growth — for flourishing.

Winter only serves to remind us of the dark and the cold.

Of necessary and inevitable dormancy.

As a child, I used to be terrified of the dark. Nightlights were my only consolation — that is, after I could match each shadow with its source. I would pull the covers over my ears and head and up past my nose so that only my eyes could be seen through my protective swaddle. It wasn’t so much that I feared what could come for me, but the vulnerability that overwhelmed me.

I carried this burden with me into and through my teenage years. Even at the outset of adulthood, too. At night, I would wrestle with questions that felt too big to ask and too complicated for anyone to answer. I felt forced to confront at night what I could so easily ignore any other time of day. I would come face to face with myself — often, coming to the actual end of myself. I’d realize my inadequacies. I’d acknowledge my shortcomings. I’d see that I had little control. Limitations bound me.

Truth is often revealed in the dark. Usually, it’s the truth that scares us the most.

“My days are like a lengthened shadow, and I wither away like grass.”

Psalm 102:11

I used to be afraid of the shadows.

But, now, I know them as an expression of something else.

At 36 years old, I’ve been set free by the one thing that spent most of my life trying to haunt me — that I am weak. I am mortal. And, only human.

Our shadows are only but a reflection of our humanity.

I don’t know why this realization has had such significant implications in my life — except to say that it’s made me more aware of just how much life I’ve wasted trying to be something else. It’s as if I’ve tiptoed across eggshells expecting them to hold form when they’d always break. When instead, I could have run. Leapt. Or, twirled across.

With my full weight.

I don’t want to hold back from pressing the whole of myself into the fragile exterior of hope and opportunity, joy and delight, and grief and failure. This is what it means to be alive. And, this is what it looks like to depend on something other than ourselves — on a Son who stands by to bear witness to it all. He rises and sets like the sun.

I can’t say I know what this next year holds, but I sense that my motivation has shifted — self-preservation is no longer my guide. Which means, there’s no more room for posturing on a spiritual or relational level. I don’t have to be anything other than what I already am. And, where I might have stored up reserves of any means of independence — I’m spending it all on knowing that I’ve never done anything alone.

We might be but shadows, but only as we bask in the light of the Lord.

Tonight, as I finish writing this — my youngest calls to me from his bedroom, crying. He’s scared. Of being in the dark. Of nightmares. Of what he is yet to understand.

And so, I go to him. I lay across his twin sized bed, stroking his forehead as he holds my hand. His eyes flutter, getting heavier and heavier until he breathes a big sigh and settles into a deep sleep. There’s comfort in knowing and naming our weaknesses — in knowing that when we do, someone will come to soothe us.

Peace tucks into the room, sinking itself into every veiled corner.

Like snow, in the winter.

In the dark, we’re all being held — blanketed by the faithfulness of God. Rest follows. And, so does our emancipation from fear.

On the shortest day of the year, may we be grateful to be but a long shadow — an unceasing reminder of our dependence on He who perpetually leans in when we, without fail, tilt away.

— Tabitha

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