Total darkness

At 5:35 this morning, I jumped out of bed. I remembered this morning, the second — and final — total lunar eclipse of 2014 would be starting soon. Quickly I got dressed, grabbed my camera and headed outside in the dark hoping to get a few good shots of the moon in all it's glory. It was eerily quiet outside. As I looked at the sky overhead, I was amazed with the spectacular view of thousands upon thousands of brilliant stars. The nighttime sky was so beautiful.

I set up my tripod and got two cameras ready. I was going to take photos with both my Nikon and my Canon and compare the two later. I glanced at the moon and saw the eclipse was just beginning. A small sliver of a shadow was covering the left side of the moon. It was hard to get a clear view from my backyard. There are so many tall trees that obstruct the view. If only there was small patch of high ground I could get to for the shot, but there was none.

I sat in my folding camp chair waiting for the eclipse to progress. I felt a little nervous sitting all alone in the dark on my patio. As I waited in the dark. I listened. There was a crunching sound just off to the right of me. Quickly, I turned my head only to see a deer grazing in the woods. The night sounds are so amplified early in the morning and I was jumpy.

The earth's shadow was beginning to slide across the moon now and I stood up to take a few photos. I knew I wasn't going to get the shot I wanted when I looked through the viewfinder because of all the trees. I resigned myself to not taking any photos and chose to just sit down and watch this spectacular event with my eyes. I sat for a long time before the surface of the moon was completely covered and it began to turn a bright, coppery red. This is another blood moon. (It looks red because of all the sunsets and sunrises from the Earth that will reflect onto the lunar surface. During the eclipse, although it's completely in the shadow of Earth, a bit of reddish sunlight still reaches the moon.
The Sun, the Earth and the full moon form a nearly straight line so that the full moon passes through the Earth's shadow, called the umbra.)

Earlier this year, I read a book called "The Four Blood Moons" by Pastor John Hagee. In it, Pastor Hagee talks about Biblical prophecy and how the blood moons correlate with Jewish holidays. It was a very interesting book and gave great insight into the coming days. Pastor Hagee mentions scripture that points to "signs in the sky" that are given by God. As I thought about some of the information I'd read in that book, I wondered about the future.  There have been so many strange things happening in the world this year. The Ebola virus has been spreading like wildfire in many African countries, taking the lives of men, women and children. An Enterovirus has put hundreds of children in hospitals all around the United States. Isis has become the topic of dinnertime conversations while beheadings continue to take place all in the name of the Muslim's Allah. Weather changes have been erratic and unpredictable with droughts, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes popping up unexpectedly in various places. Surely we are living in the end times.

The eclipse is complete now and the stillness of the night is overwhelmingly quiet. I wonder if the animals are affected in any way. Do they stand like statues in the dark wondering and waiting? I look around and try to adjust my eyes to the pitch black darkness. I'm glad the eclipse will soon be over. Although it's a beautiful, mysterious thing to watch, it's a little creepy too.

I gather my photographic equipment and go back inside the house. It's a little after 7:00 a.m. now. The eclipse has been over for a little while and the sun is starting to rise. I'm so thankful to see its light on the horizon...the dawning of a new day...but what if the sun didn't come up one day? What if we had to face a day of complete darkness? How would we react? Would crime increase? Would people become paralyzed with fear? I shudder when I think about it.

There's an old saying "it's always darkest before the dawn." Although I'm not sure who gets credit for it, a man by the name of Thomas Fuller appears to be the first person to commit the notion that 'the darkest hour is just before the dawn' to print in his religious travelogue A Pisgah-Sight Of Palestine And The Confines Thereof, 1650. That statement not only refers to the physical realm, it can also refer to the spiritual realm. To me, the statement provides hope. In my circumstance, I have found that when I am going through a very trying or difficult time, I am reminded of the dark...where I can't see what's coming next...where the shadows are eery and scary. But as I pass through the trial, just like an eclipse, I begin to see a glimmer of light...a sliver of hope. Then, before I know it, I've passed completely through the ordeal and I'm coming out on the other side of it. It's just as if I've had a personal eclipse in my life! The darkness doesn't last very long and soon the light will come.

As I wind down my radiation treatments, I am realizing as each day passes that hope is just around the corner. Soon all of this will be over and I can begin to live again. I can't wait for the day that shines bright to get here. I keep holding on and waiting. I know it will come, just as I know the night will turn to day and the cycle will repeat. I'm so grateful I don't have to face a lifetime of darkness...one trial after another with no end in sight. Without hope, there would be nothing to look forward to in life and we have to have hope.

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