“For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!” Ephesians 5:8
It’s not just the fact that she looks like a thousand white butterflies landed on her stalks – it’s the play of light that sets her apart. She’s highlighted on top, but it’s almost as if she had swallowed a candle.
She’s got that glam glow about her.
Lovely. Attractive. Pleasing to the senses and the spirit.
Wouldn’t it be a waste to dump her in a dark closet?
She was meant to shine!
(Are you seeing where I’m going with this one?)
You were meant to shine!
Light is amazing.
It’s illuminating. It’s energizing. It’s heat and pure energy and the power to turn the invisible into the seen. It keeps us from stumbling in the dark. It connects us, where darkness isolates. It warms, comforts, addd safety and security.
And its rays add beauty to the simplest shapes when they fall just so.
There is so much darkness out there.
It’s so discouraging to realize how very dark our race has always been. The trials of the past eight months have often brought out our worst – fighting over toilet paper in Costco aisles. Stealing packages from front porches in broad daylight. Pointing fingers at neighbours, tossing harsh words like weapons – these are all dark deeds, ways of dividing, isolating, and harming.
And I, a fellow sojourner, am in the inky darkness along with you. It permeates our thoughts. It darkens our minds. It feeds on fear and trauma and selfishness and grows with each bite. I am painfully aware of the darkness within my own heart.
But there is hope!
I, who lack a light of my own, am just a dark hunk of cold rock until I learn to reflect the true light, a moon to God’s Son.
So turn on the Light!
God’s vision has always been for all of us to live in the Light – in love, peace, harmony and deep, powerful joy.
Imagine how lovely that would be…
Oh, friend. Stay in the Light. Soak it in. Let it illuminate your whole being. Saturate yourself in the beauty and magnificence and power of it.
Live in the Light with me?
Father, how dark it is out there. How far we have fallen from Your original design. Lend us the light of Your Son. Illuminate and warm us from within, that we would become beacons of hope, grace, and beauty for those around us! Amen.
For more on this topic, here is a link to my award winning poem ‘Two of Us’ on my poetry blog.
Growing in Grace 