When the Midnight Meets the Morning

“When the midnight meets the morning, let me love you even more.”
—Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer


Having just passed the darkest days of the year, I know well how dark it must be at midnight. This time of year in Alberta it’s dark at 8:20am and dark again by 4:00pm. So by the time midnight rolls around, it’s good and night.

But at some point what happens is that the night ends and the dark begins to lighten. I imagine this like some kind of invisible tipping point. Though none of us could see it happen—the dark would still look just as dark—there is one crucial difference: from that point on, the darkness would be heading toward morning.

This Christmas Eve I remember that moment when the “midnight meets the morning” somewhere in the middle of a seemingly endless night. What we need at that moment is greater love. Because though the scales have tipped toward lightening, the midnight still surrounds us and we are tempted to fear.

When the midnight meets the morning, when I have all but given up hope of anything but shadow, when it’s the deepest point of night, let me love you even more. Let that love keep me from giving up on you when my heart is cold and let me believe that somewhere in the midst of that night, because of your love, the morning has already begun.