Finding Light in the Darkness

I had a spiritually defining week last month at Camp Kesem, a camp for children who have or had parent's affected by cancer. As a counselor, I was trained to help facilitate conversations for campers that sometimes led to the difficult topic of a parent's cancer. As a result, I was present for heart wrenching moments. But more-so I witnessed an incredible amount of love and bravery. The youngsters at camp helped me learn a lesson about the relationship between darkness and spiritual light. My week of camp was hard, but just as rewarding as I had expected it would be! The full impact of camp didn't hit me until I arrived back at church the following Sunday. I felt the spirit in a way in which I hadn't in a very long time.

As I sat in the chapel, I was reminded of the principle of opposition in all things. The pain these kids have endured is outweighed by the amount of love they espouse. The good of Camp Kesem, the love and strength, dwarfs the pain and tribulation that lead these youngsters to camp. However, without those dark notes, camp would not exist. The darkness that brought them to camp didn't inherently mean that light would follow, but with hard work and love a light of such intensity was created, and that would not be possible without the original darkness. Some of the young women in my unit last year who returned again this year, even expressed gratitude for the difficulties of parents' cancers for the same very reason.

Camp Kesem was hard. But it was so so good. There were a lot of broken hearts in that camp, but broken hearts are the opposite of hardened hearts and my goodness are those kids strong, loving, and brave. There wasn't a hard heart throughout the whole campsite that week. The hardest things elicit the best goods and with broken hearts, those campers love harder than anybody. My campers reminded me of this, and as I arrived back at church the fulness of this truth came to me. Camp helped me realize that Jesus Christ is completely emblematic of this principle. And I've seen this truth repeated time after time through my life and in the lives of others. I know we are loved individually and intimately by our Heavenly Parents and that our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ suffered unimaginably so that we could know that love.

In life, we can't always control the ups and the downs, but we can be blessed in knowing that the lows in life sometimes elicit even greater highs, and that the ultimate light awaits us because of the darkness Jesus endured.

I'm so happy to be in a church that teaches these lessons weekly and faces darkness as heartily as it embraces the light in life. We are told to endure life for a reason… because it isn't always a smooth ride. I encourage those who read this blog to read 2 Nephi 2. This chapter of the Book of Mormon has been one of my favorite chapters since I read it last winter. It explains that there is opposition in all things by necessity. For now I will resist copy and pasting the entire chapter and try to explain its connection to the above post with the following two verses:

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.​

If there were not opposition in all things we would not experience joy. We need to learn, like some of my young campers have already, to embrace and find gratitude for darkness (without submitting to it!!) because without it, the light wouldn't be as bright and we wouldn't be able to appreciate the wonderful parts of life in the same way. I'm so grateful for this lesson, for the church that has helped me learn it, and for Jesus Christ who has lived it so we could know it!!

Here always in your darkness and your light,

Sam (aka Blitzen)

p.s. here are some highlights from Kesem!! Photos by Jared "Subway" Vallejos