Light in the Cottian Alps

In 1655, the Duke of Savoy ordered the extermination of the Waldensians, a small community of believers who had clung to the gospel in the alpine valleys of Piedmont for nearly five centuries. Soldiers swept through the Cottian Alps in what became known as the Piedmont Easter, burning villages, slaughtering families, driving survivors higher into the frozen mountains.

But the Waldensians did not perish. They fled deeper into the wilderness — into caves and high passes where no army could easily follow. There, in those harsh, hidden places God had prepared for them, they preserved their faith, their scriptures, their worship. Their motto endured: Lux lucet in tenebris — "The light shines in the darkness."

For five hundred years before that massacre, and for centuries after, every power that tried to extinguish this small flame failed. The dragon raged, but the light survived.

In Revelation 12, John sees a woman giving birth while a great dragon crouches ready to devour her child. It is the ancient story — the forces of darkness massing against God's purposes at their most vulnerable moment. Yet the child is caught up to the Almighty's throne, and the woman is carried to a place prepared for her in the wilderness. The dragon's jaws snap shut on empty air.

God does not promise His people escape from the dragon's fury. He promises something far greater: that no darkness, however vast, will ever swallow His light.