5:38pm CST today is but a moment in time. It is a moment that is quilted with rich layers of meaning. When God said let there be light, it brings up connotations of coming home late at night on a cloudy gray evening and after stumbling around feeling for the switch, we are given sudden vision. Before finding that switch, it can be a little frightening not knowing where you're stepping. My mind can instantly write an astounding number of horror filled scenarios, with terrible images of people lying in wait, standing just ready to lunge for me. The instant that the room is flooded with light, there is instant relief.
Sunlight gives us vitamin D. It grows our vegetables. It provides warmth. It can be stored up and used for power. Sunlight affects our bodies cortisol levels. It affects our mood. Light therapy is now used to treat swelling and pain.
"God is light and in him is no darkness at all." The calendar is set up to put an end to the lengthening nights and the shortening days at the time of Christ's birth. His birth allows us to have the hope of heaven and an end to darkness. These ideas of light permeate me with great curiosity. While I do not understand the scientific principals regarding light, my heart believes that Christ represents this illumination that is so much bigger than our imaginations could ever fathom.
This season makes my heart homesick for my son. I live in utter darkness. I don't really know how or what he's doing. I don't know if he's eating. I don't know what or how much he's using. I don't know and probably don't want to know how he is surviving. I don't know if he will ever decide to get help. I don't know if I will hear from him on Christmas. But, I do know that there will be a light at the end of this tunnel. I know it because we are told to ask for the desires of our hearts, according to God's will, and it will be given to us. I don't know how or when it will be given to me, but when it is, it will be like the light flooding the room with light. It will be an instant feeling of safety. It will be my Christmas.
Today, I pray for God's light to help my son find his way home. I thank him for both the symbolic and actual increase in light in my days ahead. I thank him for all those little lights of friendship and prayer that he is placing along our path. I pray for my granddaddy Henry and for the Henry in your family that his heart will also warm to the light of Christ. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
2 comments:
Lovely Jean. I am learning to rest in the darkness, for the darkness is God (according to John of the Cross) wrapping himself around us, purifying us. But it's terrifying, no doubt. No sight. No direction. No voice. But I am learning to love the darkness. I pray you will hear from him for Christmas.
Thank you so much. It is such a foreign concept to imagine loving the darkness. But, I imagine it is a control and lack of proper faith issue that I need to work on. God seems to have much to teach me.
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