Through the Darkest Passage

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, there is a scene that has haunted readers for more than a century and a half. Jean Valjean, the ex-convict transformed by a bishop's grace, hoists the unconscious body of young Marius onto his shoulders and descends into the sewers beneath Paris. The passage stretches for miles. The darkness is total. The filth rises to his chest. At one point, the floor gives way beneath him into a stretch of underground quicksand, and he begins to sink with Marius still on his back. He raises the young man above his head with both arms and fights for every inch of footing.

He cannot see. He cannot rest. He can only keep walking.

And he does. Step after grueling step, Valjean carries a man who cannot carry himself through a darkness that seems to have no end — until at last, light breaks through a grate at the river's edge.

The Christian life sometimes feels like that tunnel. Paul knew it well: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair" (2 Corinthians 4:8). The darkness does not mean the Almighty has abandoned you. It means you are still in the passage — and the God who brought you into it will bring you through it. Keep walking. The light is ahead.