Cenotes of Serenity
Light in the Darkness
In the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula, there is a dark underworld, hidden from sight. It’s a place of intrigue, fascination, and mystery. Hidden below the surface, this underworld lies beneath the veil of the limestone ground we walk upon. In order to see it, you must be willing to move out of your comfort zone. You must venture beyond your fears and boldly confront the uncertainties of the unknown. You must penetrate into rocky portals and plunge into liquid darkness. But it is in this deep mysterious darkness that the light is more distinctly seen!
The Cenotes of Quin-tana Ro-o are the thresholds of the largest underground river in the world! The Riviera Maya is a 430-mile network of caverns and caves, flooded with the only potable water in the region. This vast underground labyrinth is the life source of this flat, humid jungle peninsula.
As rain falls, it filters through the soft, porous limestone, adding to the immense river beneath the rock. But when the rock becomes weak, it can fall under its own weight, creating massive sinkholes. A cenote is a wound in the earth that exposes the veins of life-giving water below. Ancient Mayans considered these cenotes to be sacred portals to the underworld, where their deities resided. They are fresh openings for explorers to see the glories of the underworld.
Most will never see it for themselves. But the explorer in me itches for adventure and thirsts for discovery. It is a place that is relatively easy to get to—but very hard to leave.
As the light of the noonday sun pierces through the holes in the limestone rock, it creates spotlights of illumination, penetrating the darkness below. The other-worldly scenery of the topography, mixed with the weightlessness in the water, combined with the silence and sound of bubbles, and the stark contrast of light and darkness is nothing short of epic. Being deep down here, where most have never been, makes me feel like I’m in another world. It’s like I’ve entered into another reality and passed into a completely different dimension. It’s a deeper dimension, where the noise is silenced, life slows down, and the stress of the surface is transformed into peace like a river.
Words are inadequate to describe the surrealism of this sacred underwater world. You must come to see and experience it for yourself! But just as beautiful as the scenery of the ancient cenotes are the sublime lessons it teaches—to those whose minds take the time to sink below the surface of a mere outward adventure. As I’ve mused upon the message of the cenotes, here are some of the lessons it has taught me.
A cenote is a sinkhole: a weak spot in the rock that has lost its strength to hold anything up. When the pressure from above increases and the support from below diminishes, the structure becomes weak, and it collapses into the abyss below. So, a cenote is literally a fracture that leads to a fall, a fault that leads to a failure. It’s a weakness that has broken under pressure and has lost all strength to hold itself up.
My friends, life is kind of like this. People face so many pressures living in this broken world. Perhaps you have felt crushed under the unbearable weight of this world of sin. Maybe every earthly support you trusted in has failed. As a result, you may have fallen into a sinkhole of discouragement and despair. Maybe people have disappointed you, political parties have frustrated you, friends have betrayed you, family have forsaken you, or society has discarded you. Due to the paralyzing pressure, your physical body, or your mental health, has reached breaking point. Or maybe the failures of your own foolish mistakes have caused you to fall and you’ve lost all strength to hold yourself up.
If this is you, please allow me to remind you that, just like the Cenotes of the Yucatan, your disappointment and fall doesn’t have to be your end. It can be the beginning of a deeper illumination—an opportunity for the darkness within to be dispelled by the light from above! It’s a spiritual opening to something better than the stuff on the surface. It’s a crack in our character that needs to be broken, so that we can be transformed with a completely new purpose. It’s a space where the empty caverns of our lives can be filled with new desires and new meaning!
My friends, I want you to know that the great God of heaven wants to penetrate the deepest, darkest areas of your life. He wants to remove the covering you hide behind and pierce the hard outward exterior with the light of His amazing love and the warmth of His blessed hope.
When we allow that divine light to shine in us, our brokenness and failure becomes redeemed for a deeper purpose. Our lives become a new opening—a fresh well, from which flows a deeper, clearer revelation—an illuminating exposure to the surface world of the depth of God’s beautiful grace and redeeming power.
So don’t lose hope in the sinkhole. All is not lost if you’ve fallen into the abyss. There is beauty in the unseen realm and sweet serenity in the cenotes of life. For God’s light shines, even in the deepest, darkest, and most discouraging moments. Look for Him in the darkness. Seek Him in the cenotes, and He will guide you to the Light!