Darkness Is As Light With You
sin’s consequences on our connection with God and others
This article is part of the Claritas spring 2025 issue, Connection. Read the full print release here.
By: Hannah Guan
Building Connection
He places his hand practically on top of mine and guides me to more efficiently peel the golden potatoes that we will cook for lunch. I flinch, because I like to operate independently, but I am touched that he is spending this time with me.
The summer before my freshman year of high school, my grandpa flew from China to live with my family in Pennsylvania, and I found myself spending ample time with him.
My grandpa was not a man of many words, but we connected deeply in other ways. I was his sous-chef every day for lunch and dinner, peeling and chopping vegetables, doing dishes by his side, and taste-testing his food to make sure it would satisfy his beloved granddaughters. When I practiced the piano, he never failed to enter the room and sit on the couch, listening to the same songs over and over again. He would hover around as I did chores, often ending up doing them for me. When he did talk, it was to call me over to look at something exciting on his phone. Once, I sat next to him for half an hour, watching a video of a train running through a beautiful mountain. The video was the same five-minute segment playing repeatedly, but I didn’t know how to tell him I was no longer interested.
Our time together might have seemed mundane, but it became a point of pride to see our relationship grow. His presence that summer felt extra meaningful.
Sin That Brings Forth Death
For eight years from middle school to college, I struggled with disordered eating and exercise. The root of this issue was an intense desire for control. I felt this sense of being “out of control” as kids slanted their eyes or yelled racial remarks on my bus-ride home from school. I’d pray my grandpa would not be seen and wish desperately to change my ethnicity. I felt out of control as I fought to be cherished in relationships, only to fall short given my quieter, shier disposition. Even within my own family, I felt my grasp on maintaining peace slip through my fingertips as I was constantly anxious to please my father, who wrestled with uncontrolled anger. There were parts of my life where I felt so inadequate that controlling the way I looked and people’s perception of me became a source of comfort. I can now pinpoint “fear of man” as the source of my festering desire to sin—to prioritize my self-defined appearance over my relationships.
I think the term “orthorexia” best defines what I was struggling with, referring to an “obsession with healthy eating with associated restricted behaviors.” [1] I cut out food groups, obsessed over ingredient labels, and stressed when I couldn’t exercise a certain amount. My tendencies made me feel safe, but they pushed me away from others. As I made drastic lifestyle changes concerning diet and exercise, the comments my family, friends, and church members made caused me to feel alienated, even distressed. I experienced a constant dilemma: Either I risked losing control of what made me feel safe and worthy or risked having people perceive me as weird and “too particular.” Often, there was one solution that could satisfy both conditions: retreat. The tensions that arose due to my choices urged me to hide in the dark, fueling a cycle of sinning and retreating.
Sin finds nourishment by operating in the dark—by enticing the sinner to retreat from the light and seek refuge from its penetrating rays. That is how sin brought forth death in my life. In isolation, my habits gained strength and authority. In isolation, I was fully shackled to the chains of shame, with no one to come into my brokenness and remind me of God’s abundant grace, which He lavishes upon us.
Sin Disrupts Connection
My family pleads with me to not be so stubborn. Truly, it is okay if I skip one diving practice, but I do not oblige. They do not know the level of sacrifice that must be made to become a good athlete. Plus, my grandpa himself said it was okay. He wants this for me. This was my poor rebuttal for missing my grandpa’s 85th birthday celebration.
It was just a few days before he returned to China, and the entire family was going out for dinner. By this point, I had developed an avoidance of restaurants, afraid of not being able to find a meal fitting my “healthy standards.” Simultaneously, I began to idolize validation through success in the sport of diving, adding to my need to maintain strict eating and exercise habits. My fears and desires consumed me, and the time I spent with my grandpa steadily decreased. The joy that once characterized our relationship became dimmer.
In Chinese culture, love is often not expressed in words, but in the sharing and provision of meals. Especially with cultural and language barriers that make it difficult to know my relatives deeply through conversation, sharing food together is the hallmark for expressing mutual love and digging past initial awkwardness. When I declined my grandpa’s cooking, avoided meals with him in restaurants, and brushed off his concerns for me, I succeeded in denying the love he desperately wanted to show me. And without the ability to show or receive love, how could our connection endure?
As I think back to this moment—the last in-person birthday I could have celebrated with him—my heart breaks for letting the power of my sinful pride overtake me. My heart breaks for “passing away along with [the world’s] desires.” [2] My heart breaks for pushing away his love.
“Against you, you only, have I sinned.” [3]
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed…
I am growing more in love
with you Jesus, yet I cannot seem to get over this. I know I believe in you. Please help me.
Took bread
I look at the cracker in my right hand and the tiny cup of grape juice in my left. The cracker looks too processed and the juice too sugary. I cannot mess up my routine now. I don’t think I’m strong enough.
And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said “This is my body, which is for you; Do this in remembrance of me.” [4]
Jesus, I know I am supposed to do this for you. I know I cannot dishonor you. Don’t let me go.
Take, and eat.
My flesh quenches the Spirit. I bring the cracker to my mouth, but it stays tucked in my hands. I pretend to chew, mimicking those around me to avoid drawing attention. When it is time to drink from the cup, I swish the juice around in my mouth. After some time, I realize I have no other choice but to begrudgingly swallow. The negative thoughts come rushing in, and I am crushed.
Lord Jesus, I am sorry for sinning against you, you alone.
At the Easter service of my home church during my sophomore year of high school, the depths of my sin were revealed to me. I had denied taking the most worthy meal of all–the meal to remember my Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection.
More than the isolation I felt from others or the hurt I caused, the deepest wound of my sin lay in disrupting my connection with God. I turned my back against the very One who had saved me from sin and its deathly wages and denied the hope He had given me, fearing the opinions of others over reverence for Him. This was my greatest breach of all.
False Connection
Even in fellowship with the body of Christ, it is possible to still dwell in darkness. Upon entering college, where revelations of God’s Word and the sweetness of fellowship grew my relationship with Jesus, I only felt the draining battle within me increase. I became more aware of the depths of my sin and the importance of walking in the light, yet my intense fear of judgment bound me further.
In “Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoffer writes about “pious fellowship,” an extreme form of Christian community where no one is allowed to be a sinner—where everyone must conceal sin from himself and the larger fellowship. [5] He elaborates on the idea that many Christians would be simply horrified to find a “real” sinner amidst their “righteous” congregation. This notion leads people to hide in sin, living as liars and hypocrites.
At Cornell, I actually think there is a healthy level of confessing sins, yet it seemed that no one’s struggle was buried in as much shame as my own. I drew a line between “confessable” and “non-confessable” sins, where I shared about heart struggles like pride, jealousy, and anxiety as a student in ministry, but found no strength to talk of sins rooted in years of piling shame. I wondered what the point of confessing was without seeing progress, whether anyone would be sensitive toward me, and whether they would judge my habits when exposed.
So while I was confessing some of my sins, I was still contributing to the formation of a pious fellowship, because I believed my confession of sins rooted in deep brokenness would appall my community. And the more chances I turned down to share with friends, and the more leadership positions I took on, the more my will to confess such sins faded.
True Connection
I sometimes wondered whether Jesus could relate to my pain—pain concerning a woman’s physical body and her racing mind. I knew that Jesus was the perfect sympathizer, as is written in Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” [6] Yet, I could not imagine how His temptations as a human could lead Him to have grace for me and the way I had hurt my body and relationship with others.
I was drawn to Jesus’ healing of the bleeding woman in Mark 5:21-34, which tells of a woman who had suffered from menstrual bleeding for 12 years, making her a societal outcast. Searching for healing, she spent all she had on physicians, only to suffer more and grow sicker until she encountered Jesus. Through faith, she touched His garment and was healed. [7]
Here is what I love about this story: Jesus was not disgusted, and He could relate to her more deeply than anyone. Unlike everyone who distanced themselves because of her condition, Jesus went searching for her. Instead of focusing on her physical state, He healed her due to her faith. Contrary to my belief, Jesus can and does connect with the pain of women through His death on the cross. In the way that women experience monthly pains and suffer birth pains to give new life, Jesus endured the most excruciating, humiliating, culturally offensive pain to give us life, and life to the full. [8]
So, how does Jesus connect with us in our brokenness? How could He connect with me in my dirty, endless hurt and shame?
He notices me in the crowd. He is not repulsed by the years of internal battles that have caused me physical and mental pain and isolation. He is not turned off by my cries for help. He lets me come to Him and asks if I believe that He can heal me. I say yes. Jesus, I believe that you have healed me from my sin, so how will you help me now? Then I realize: Jesus not only stoops low to heal us physically as He did the bleeding woman, but He also sends His Holy Spirit to dwell within us. It pains Him when I hurt myself out of selfish ambition, so He works to heal my heart and give me more of His own.
How beautiful is our Savior, who not only draws near and touches us in our wretchedness but decides to dwell in us through faith. [9] He heals me and frees me, continually. As I turn my eyes upon beautiful Jesus, truly, the things of this world—my body, my self-worth, and shame—grow strangely dim.
Connection Rebuilt
She looks at me with soft eyes over dinner at Okenshields and asks about my relationship with body image for the first time. She has struggled too, and we pray to our Father for both of our healing.
She writes me a letter, pointing to Scripture about walking in the light and the glory of overcoming sin and shame. I wonder how God could speak so directly through her.
For hours, she sits beside me on the slope, asking gentle questions and countering the lies I have believed for so, so long.
How is it that I have felt freedom from being a prisoner to sin? It is by beautiful connection with sisters in Christ, built on a foundation of true connection with Jesus. When I am called into the blinding light and held there firmly by friends, I can finally taste God’s grace. Though it hurts, though I might cringe for days after these conversations, it is worth it. It is worth it to walk as a child of light and awake from my sleep. [10] It is worth it to not have to hide my truest self but instead, experience love in my weakness.
My walk with Jesus and with His body of believers then teaches me to better connect with others. In Alia Joy’s Glorious Weakness, she offers a way in which we can better do so, having been transformed by restoration with God through the Son. She writes, “to believe that the experiences we have are valid, that the feelings and expressions of them are true and real and worthy of being listened to, is one of the greatest mercies we offer each other.” [11] Just as Jesus validates our pain and sees us as being worthy to be heard and felt, so we can extend that same mercy to others.
When Jesus reaches out to touch me and guide my hand, I don’t flinch. Even when He takes me aside and slathers mud on my eyes as He did when healing a man born blind in John 9, I do not flinch. I’d rather not operate alone and I know I need His healing. As I willingly cling to His hand, He urges me to cling to the hands of those around me as well, and this time, I obey.
This article appeared in Claritas’ spring 2025 Connection Issue
Sources
[1] Scarff, Jonathan. “Orthorexia Nervosa: An Obsession With Healthy Eating.” Pubmed Central. Frontline Medical Communications Inc., 2017. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6370446/.
[2] 1 John 2:17 (ESV)
[3] Psalm 51:4 (ESV)
[4] 1 Corinthians 11:23-24 (ESV)
[5] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. New York: Harper and Row, 1954.
[6] Hebrews 4:15 (ESV)
[7] Mark 5:21-34
[8] John 10:10 (NIV)
[9] Ephesians 3:17 (ESV)
[10] Ephesians 5:14 (ESV)
[11] Joy, Alia. Glorious Weakness. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2019.