There is a memory that will forever be ingrained in mine and my wife’s story. Within the past year, my wife and I became foster parents and received our first placement—a sweet two-year-old girl. Our connection with her was immediate. Within a day of picking her up from the hospital, it felt like she was our own child.
Nevertheless, it was God’s kind providence that led to the phone call that all foster parents dread but expect: they were coming to pick her up to take her to be with family.
The grief was immediate and deep. How do you just let a child you have grown to love go? Regardless of our desires, the time came, the social worker arrived, and against every fiber in us, we put that little girl in a car seat, never to be seen by us again.
And we wept—we wept long, and we wept hard. To this day, when I think of her, it moves me deeply.
When the soul is drowning, to what can it cling that is buoyant enough to keep it afloat? In those days of darkness, I found myself reflecting on the Preacher’s words in Ecclesiastes 11:7–8. They have held my hand as my wife and I have learned what it means to be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10) in the wake of our first child’s departure.
These verses invite us to look honestly and soberly at both the sweetness of life’s light and the certainty of its darkness. I invite you to reflect with me on what it means to bathe in the light as the sun dips below the horizon and the shadows of evening begin to gather:
“Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. For if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many” (Ecc. 11:7–8).[1]
- Bathe in the Light
It’s a beautiful verse, but what does it mean that light is sweet? In Ecclesiastes, light is the gracious revelation and manifestation of God’s goodness in a dark and broken world (2:13–14; 11:7–8). “Light” is not something meant to remain abstract—it is the very grace of God that warms the heaven-bound soul as they undoubtedly trek through many long, cold, and lonely evenings. It is something that can be held onto, whether physically or spiritually—it can be noticed, received, and remembered.
The light for my wife and me are the evenings of cuddles as we watched Bluey with our little girl and our shared laughter as she would get the “zoomies” before bed. The light was watching this child from an unbelieving family learn the rhythms of song and prayer.
There is much light elsewhere in my life. My wedding day. Reconciling with family members after years of relational tension. Brunch dates. Time in the Word and prayer where I feel intimate with the Lord and on fire for his mission.
Cling to the days of light, friends, and call them to mind often. Cling to the days where you can grab God’s goodness, receive its warmth and comfort, and go to bed with a smile and a happy heart. For as God gifts days of light, he also gifts another type of day in his providence: “the days of darkness will be many.”
- Accept the Night
The night is often long and cold. However, one of the first truths I had to learn to stomach before feeling the light again is that the night is not necessarily a bad thing. Notice that the Preacher does not condemn the days of darkness; he simply states, “the days of darkness will be many,” and this is something you should remember when experiencing the light.
The events that bring “the days of darkness” certainly can be caused by sinful origins, and that should not be ignored, but that does not mean everything about it is to be despised.
Rather, it is essential that we learn from the great sufferers of the faith who are able to say things like, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21), and, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Gen. 50:20).
Such is the wisdom of the Preacher, and such should be the disposition of the sufferer. The darkness is often painful, but when the righteous sufferer resigns himself or herself to the sovereign goodness of our God in all things, a context is created wherein light can be felt again—and the darkness becomes the backdrop that magnifies the great graces and gifts of our good God.
- Rejoice in the Light Amid the Night
Light is not only a blessing in the day; it becomes essential when night falls.
Following the opening declaration that light is sweet, the Preacher provides a foundational reason—signaled by the word “for” (rendered in the ESV as “so”)—why the light is sweet. Light is sweet precisely because life contains both stretches of joy and many days of darkness, and the ability to delight in the light is grounded in holding the two together—not their separation.
The Preacher is not offering a simple cause-and-effect: “Light is sweet… so rejoice!” That would treat joy as automatic and ignore the reality of darkness. Rather, he explains, “Light is sweet… for God gives years worth rejoicing in even though many dark ones will come.” The sweetness of light is meaningful because it exists alongside the days of darkness, and rejoicing is grounded in God’s providence of both days, not just in the days of light.
The sweetness of light is not naïve of life’s brutal realities, nor is rejoicing dependent on days of light; the tension between the sweetness of light and pain of darkness is meant to be held together for the explicit purpose that the days of darkness highlight the sweetness of the light.
You are right to rejoice in every day and year that God gives—for he really does give many good ones, even though darkness is a part of the package.
So when the sun drops beneath the horizon and the bitter cold of night begins to bite at you, hold the moments of light near, for these are the very means and graces of God ordained to sustain you and provide warmth when you can no longer see.
The evenings of laughter are not meant to make you collapse when they end—they are meant to remind you that God is good all the time, even when it doesn’t feel like it. They remind you that night is temporary. The same sun that sank beneath the horizon will rise again—dawn is as certain as dusk.
Cling to the days of health, joy, and intimacy with God, fellow church members, your children, and any other that God might bring across your path, for seasons of sickness, sadness, and loneliness will surely come. When they come, remember the graces and gifts of the past—for their sweetness will return again. It may not be tomorrow, but if you are in Christ, his light will dawn on you for an eternity. Therefore, we hope and do not despair.
[1] Most English translations render the Hebrew particle, ki, in v. 8 as “so,” but the word more commonly introduces an explanation or grounding (“for”). The Preacher is not drawing a conclusion (“so rejoice”) but giving the reason why light is sweet (“for God gives many good years even though dark ones will come”).