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richardaallenjr

2. Solace

Updated: Mar 29

Navigating a world in chaos requires solace.


(A Light in The Darkness, Richard A. Allen, Jr. - Available for purchase on website)


From the Latin solacium, “solace” refers to a soothing, quiet place of consolation and contentment—like being alone on a beach at sunset, closing our eyes, and taking a deep breath as the ocean goes quiet between wave sets.

These moments are powerful, but too often fleeting or submerged by the cares of this life.

Real solace is not apathy, ignorance, or denial. It does not require retreat from reality. Although it deeply affects us, it is not self-absorbed. It’s not “navel gazing” as we used to say or manufacturing a false reality. It is a very real and powerfully enduring respite that flourishes in the face of difficulty.

The counterfeit of solace is selfish ambition--a deceptively transitory path that often leads one down the dark roads of drugs, alcohol, narcissism, and domination of others—deceptively transitory paths that illustrate the problem: Solace based on self-preservation, pleasure, or promotion is not solace at all. Synthetic solace is selfishness, and selfishness never provides lasting solace.

And here we see the battleground most clearly articulated.

Genuine solace is intrinsically at odds with “self” because “self” is incredibly difficult to satisfy. It doesn’t take much for “self” to lust, lash out, be discontent, or virulently defend its territory. “Self” is an extraordinarily potent force that abhors being controlled, and usually lacks the capability to control itself.

This is counterintuitive to those who have retreated behind the walls of “self” to deflect any notion that “self” is not supreme reality. “I am what I believe myself to be, right?” “Something is true because I believe it to be true, correct?”

Objective reality is the arch enemy of “self.”

True solace begins when we accept and engage the reality of our smallness in the universe. Then, in that smallness, we find something beyond it that ironically yet profoundly affirms our value. Amidst the incalculable number of stars and galaxies in the night sky, among the billions of people on earth, we are but a transitory speck, a puff of smoke that evaporates in short order.

Yet as such we find our true value—not in believing ourselves to be important, but in Someone putting us here for a reason. God created us with great worth. We were created in His image. Yet we rejected that image, that place of solace, and traded eternal worth for temporary scraps.

When we discover the purpose of our existence, we begin to find solace. When we realize we do not have to be defined by “self,” we begin to find solace. When we surrender our fortress of “self” to the heart of the Divine, to Jesus Christ, we will find unshakable solace.

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