There are many saints reading this blog and I am humbled by their comments and insights.
One of the readers has shared with me her own Dark Night experiences. She has experienced the Light, which St. Padre Pio states, is just behind the shadows, just barely visible to the one in the Dark Night.
That God hides from one until that person is pure enough to experience Him rather than experience one's own idea of Him is a mystery of the Dark Night.
How many times do people fall in love with an "idea" rather than with a real person. To love a real person is a wonderful experience and those of us who have experienced this are grateful for that love.
Christ waits for us until we are ready to experience Him as He wants to reveal Himself.
Many times, people are afraid of love and back away from real relationships. Perhaps these people have been hurt and do not trust anyone. Perhaps they are afraid of someone "finding out" what one is really like.
Of course, real love accepts a person as he is, and not as one imagines that person to be. Such is the freedom of love and such is the wonderful freedom one experiences when God allows Himself to be found.
If God is not letting one find Him, it means the person is not ready to experience the love of God. The bride in the Song of Songs goes searching for her beloved. And, when she does this, it is night.
This is an allegory of the Dark Night.
Song of Solomon 3
Douay-Rheims
3 In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and found him not.
2 I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not.
3 The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth?
4 When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.