LIGHT!

This morning we put our firstborn on a plane back to college up north, where the winter is dark and SAD⁠1 is real.  She promised to consider borrowing a “happy lamp” from the student wellness center and to figuratively carry the light with her: the clear, cool January sun sparkling off the Lowcountry rivers, tidal creeks and, at high tide, even the marshes.  It does seem as if some of our light left when she did, although it’s as bright outdoors as ever.

How can we define light? Do we just know it when we see it? Are we even aware when it’s dim or missing? The early light of dawn and the declining light at dusk come and go so gradually.  Yesterday I read the notice that the author of All the Light We Cannot See will be speaking at our daughter’s school this spring - and I wondered: Is there a lot of light we can’t see? How blind are we?

The best answer I can offer is this: in His light we see light (Ps 36:9).  We are blind without Him to gently, mercifully open our eyes… and  we need to continually, constantly abide and rely on His vision, His life, His love.  

 Paul says “the Father… has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son…” (Colossians 1:11-13).  John describes the kingdom further in Revelation 21:22-27 : the City whose lamp is the Lamb, and where, because there is no night, the gates are always open, welcoming! “In Him is no darkness at all” and we can “walk in the light, as He is in the light” (I John 1:5-10)

I wanted to take pictures of the sky this morning, to remember and to send along with our daughter to the cold, dark north.  I even started trying. But she reminded me that the pictures don’t really capture the light. And the sky is always changing, always beautiful — when we have eyes to see.

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1 Seasonal affective disorder