light deficiency

Try this exercise.

If you’re in the fire service, recall a run or response that carries specific images with it. If you’re not in the fire service, just recall a memory that feels heavy or seems to hold on to you.

Now, close your eyes.

It’s there isn’t it? Clear. Sometimes it seems more clear than your actual vision. Truth is, there is a segment of society who, by choice, subjects themselves to these situations in an effort to be part of the solution. As a result, theses images, along with the associated emotional and physical responses, stack up like a slide show and like your embarrassing teenage pictures, they periodically and randomly resurface.

My purpose of bringing this up is to highlight the fact that we spend a giant chunk of our lives in “darkness”. Our chosen professions are to be responders to darkness; to brokenness in homes, to the pain of addiction, hopelessness in the face of death, evil acts committed by one person onto another, to the innocence of children exposed to a fallen world and so on and so on.

My first question is, what is the cost? What is the price paid for that exposure and do those costs extend out to those who are closest to us? Although, I don’t know the exact cost, and I believe the exchange rate is likely different for each of us, I’d think that we can agree that there is one. Fire service PTSD statistics are on the rise and with a quick survey around the cab of any Engine or Truck (fire truck) you’ll hear evidence of personality changes and emotional baggage. Pause for a second and do a quick and honest self-assessment.

I’m going to move forward under the assumption that to some degree you’ve identified some effect of overexposure to darkness. If you didn’t, you likely just started your first shift or are the guy that is oblivious to all things around them at all times. We all know one of those guys and if a name didn’t come to mind….. it’s you.

The second question then becomes, how do you deal with it or do you? Not addressing it is not an option. You owe it to yourself and those you love to acknowledge it’s there, that it has effects and they need to be confronted. Please don’t hear this as license to whine and milk it for all it’s worth. Remember, you chose this. But, you do have to face it and when it comes to internal or emotional things in the fire service, it takes more balls to discuss them than to repress them. So, how are you going to do it? How are you going to inject light into the dark part of the world that we spend so much time in? Think about it. Talk to your wife, kids, parents and friends about it. Talk to your crew about. Let the salty guys share their experiences and what to expect and then make a plan.

Mine? Jesus. The redemptive and restorative expression that Jesus’ life was gives reason and purpose even to the things that happen in darkness. Please don’t take this as me saying I never have questions or wrestle with why things happen. Because I do. But, when I add the evidence I see in scripture of God working all things out for good, to the understanding that God’s perspective is encompassing all things, not just my things, I can find peace in that.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1: 4-5

Furthermore, I believe that I that now carry that light in me. As I move into the darkness we operate in so frequently, darkness is driven out. My prayer is that I won’t be the only one who benefits from the light He has deposited in me and that we will see areas and lives where light has permanently displaced darkness and evil.

My desire is that these posts will create conversation which will create community. So, if you have thoughts, we’d love to hear them. We’d love to talk about them. We’d love to gather and share these conversations and life with people wrestling through the same things.

Love ya, -jeff