Walking Out of the Dark: My Journey with the Light of the World

From the shadows of shame to the glow of mercy, this is how the Light of the World rewrote my story.

I didn’t even know I was in the dark.

That’s the thing about darkness, you get used to it.

The habits, the shame, the voices in your head telling you you’ll never be free.

I was stuck in a loop: porn, self-hatred, manic highs, depressive crashes, moments of clarity buried under a flood of noise.

And then I read John 8:12, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

It wasn’t just a verse.

It was a lifeline. Jesus wasn’t calling me to be perfect; He was calling me to walk with Him.

Even when I stumbled.

Even when I couldn’t see.

This is my journey with the Light of the World.

As a person who grew up in the Pentecostal movement.

It was easy to get lost in the emotions of the sermon and worship.

I wish there were more discussions and thought around Jesus in the church.

I have often doubted and questioned my faith.

Pleading to God to save me once more and to give me a revival.

Looking back, it was in vain.

Instead of streaming and shouting to conjure a feeling.

I’ve become more reflective and sat in silence as Jesus calls me to be a friend and a disciple of His.

John 8:12 shows me plainly that if I say I am of Christ and I follow him, then I don’t live in darkness, but the light is within me.

But that truth didn’t come all at once; it had to be wrestled out of me.

I used to measure my faith by emotional highs, altar calls, and goosebumps during worship.

If I didn’t feel it, I thought I had failed Him.

But Jesus isn’t a feeling, He’s the Light.

And light doesn’t always blaze.

Sometimes it flickers gently in a quiet room.

Sometimes it shows up in the middle of a relapse, a breakdown, a hospital stay, whispering: “You’re still mine.”

I’ve had to unlearn a version of faith that said I had to earn His presence, and instead, accept that His presence was already there, waiting for me to open my eyes.

Recently, I was with a friend, a fellow brother in Christ, and I told him how participating in sin feels good.

Because it’s an escape and it gives me temporary relief.

However, after thinking more on this verse, I’ve concluded that sin isn’t fun and it grieves the Holy Spirit, the light within me.

Walking and following Christ, there’s a demand on your soul to improve and be better.

To walk in integrity and to have a responsibility for yourself.

That conversation stuck with me.

I realized I wasn’t just running to sin, I was running from responsibility, from discomfort, from facing the parts of me that still felt broken.

But the more I follow Jesus, the more I see that He’s not asking for perfection. He’s asking for honesty.

For presence.

For me to stop hiding behind pleasure and start walking in truth, even when it costs me.

The light of life doesn’t just expose darkness around me; it exposes the darkness in me.

And instead of condemning me, He calls me to step into something higher.

That’s what walking in the light is: a daily surrender, a daily choice to become more like Him.

I’m not out of the woods.

I still wrestle.

I still fall.

But I don’t walk in darkness anymore, not because I’m perfect, but because I’m walking with the One who is.

The Light of the World didn’t wait for me to get it all together. He met me in the mess and said, “Follow Me.”

And somehow, even in the moments I’ve doubted, stumbled, or sat in silence, His light has never gone out.

John 8:12 isn’t just a verse; it’s my reminder that my past or my pain no longer defines me.

I am following the Light, and He is leading me home.