"What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops." Matthew 10:27

"At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God's hand until we learn to hear Him. "What I tell you in darkness" - watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.
After every time of darkness there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at all), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation - What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it all these days and weeks. Now He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now."

Got to love Ozzie Chambers ~ this is a great reminder that the valleys are ordained by God as a means of our sanctification, just as much as the mountain tops.
I have to say though, when the Lord is not as near, I get a little scared. Like a little 3 year old in the middle of a shopping center who lost sight of their parent. This even, has been showing me recently, that I know He has his eye on me, and He is looking out for my best interest - which would be making me like Jesus, and a deeper love and knowledge and appreciation for Him. I've been in this place before, but for some reason, I am not fretting this time.....
But I AM wrestling with not fretting because of my lack of fretting...in thinking that I should be as I was when I first got saved. Whenever I would be put into the shadows, I would get terrified that I was somehow going to walk away from the Lord and I was so determined to not let God run away from me.......always pleading with Him, "oh, please Father, please don't give up on me." and I thought that the times where God hid His face was somehow a sign of my not being saved anymore. Terrifying thought.
But now, I'm getting to know well, and deeply.....that His promise is tried, and I find myself in love with it, and ever more dependent on His word.
"Though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man, thy glories may not see"

(as Sarah Edwards and Noel Piper had reiterated) Like a weaned child is able to rest it's head on it's mother........so should faith find rest and trust in the Lord. (a little child who has been weaned is not always 'going after' it's mother, for what it can get from her........but is just able to rest easy)
Ahh......I guess we'll see what the Lord has for me in and through this time.

Resting on the Rock,
Jen2