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Still Dark - Monday, 04/06/2026 

Scripture: John 20:1–2; Psalm 30:1–5

John tells us that Mary went to the tomb 'while it was still dark.' That detail is easy to rush past, but it's one of the most honest things in the whole Easter story. She didn't wait for clarity. She didn't wait for the sun to come up and things to make sense. She went in the dark, because grief doesn't wait for a convenient time.

A lot of life in Monroe — and everywhere else — happens in that kind of darkness. It's the 2 a.m. worry that won't let you sleep. It's the heaviness that follows you to work even when you're smiling on the outside. It's the quiet kind of grief that doesn't have a name but takes up space just the same. If you've been living in that kind of dark lately, you're in good company.

Psalm 30 holds both things at once — the reality of weeping that 'lasts for a night,' and the promise that 'joy comes in the morning.' The Psalms don't rush past the dark the way we sometimes do. They sit in it. They name it. And then — not instead of it, but through it — they reach toward hope. That rhythm of honesty followed by trust is one of the oldest patterns in the life of faith.

What's worth noticing is that Easter morning didn't actually begin in celebration. It began in darkness and confusion and a woman running to get help. The joy came — but it came through the grief, not around it. God doesn't ask us to pretend the dark isn't dark. God meets us in it.

If today feels dark for you, that doesn't mean God is absent. It might mean you're right at the beginning of the story — the part that comes just before the stone is rolled away.

Reflection Question:  Is there a kind of darkness you've been carrying that you haven't given yourself permission to name honestly?

Action Step:  Write one sentence today — just one — that honestly names something hard you're carrying. You don't have to share it with anyone. Just name it, and then say: 'God, I'm bringing this to you.'

Prayer:  God, I don't always know how to talk about the dark places. But you already know they're there. Meet me in them. I trust that morning comes. Amen.