The Little Soul and the Sun
by God through Neale Donald Walsch.

There was once a soul who knew itself to be the light.
This was a new soul, and so, anxious for experience.
"I am the light," it said. "I am the light."
Yet all the knowing of it and all the saying of it
could not substitute for the experiencing of it.
And in the realm from which this soul emerged,
there was nothing but the light.
Every soul was grand, every soul was magnificent,
and every soul shone with the brilliance of My awesome light.
And so the little soul in question was as a candle in the sun.
In the midst of the grandest light
- of which it was a part - it could not see itself,
nor experience itself as Who and What it Really Is.

Now it came to pass that this soul yearned
and yearned and yearned to know itself.
And so great was its yearning that I one day said,
"Do you know, Little One, what you must do
to satisfy this yearning of yours?"

"Oh, what, God? What? I'll do anything!" The little soul said.

"You must separate yourself from the rest of us," I answered,
"and then you must call upon yourself the darkness."

"What is the darkness, o Holy One?" the little soul asked.

"That which you are not," I replied, and the soul understood.

And so this the soul did, removing itself from the All,
yea, going even unto another realm.
And in this realm the soul had the power to
call into its experience all sorts of darkness. And this it did.

Yet in the midst of all the darkness did it cry out,
"Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Even as have you in your blackest times.
Yet I have never forsaken you, but stand by you always,
ready to remind you of Who You Really Are;
ready, always ready, to call you home.

Therefore, be a light unto the darkness and curse it not.

And forget not Who You Are in the moment
of your encirclement by that which you are not.
But do you praise to the creation, even as you seek to change it.

And know that what you do in the time
of your greatest trial can be your greatest triumph.
For the experience you create is a statement
of Who You Are - and Who You Want to Be.

from Conversations With God (Book 1).