As he makes his way across our country road, awaiting the flashing lights of the school bus, it's been darker this week. Last Sunday's time change has affected us in this and other ways.
This morning, though, I notice it's already lighter at 7am than it was on Monday.
Because that's how light works.
It keeps chipping away at the dark until the world is crowded with brightness.
At the end of each day, as darkness returns, the light does not surrender easily. It makes a display of itself. In sunsets. In the moon. In starscapes.
It keeps hanging on. And even just a bit of it is stronger than a bulk of darkness.
So when my soul feels crowded with darkness, the light is never far away.
The morning dawns, and the first break of it disperses the blackness. The light wiggles itself into every crevice until I am, again, bathed in a crowd of luminosity.
P.S. Looking at the above photo, I realize that it's nearly impossible to determine whether this is a sunrise or a sunset. Because the image is ruled by the light, not by the direction in which is light is heading. Light always crowds out the rest.
The wind and waves obey Him.
I ask for an explanation.
I focus on my lack.
The lilies do not toil or spin.
The rocks cry out in praise.
I'm more inclined to pout.
The trees yield their fruit in season.
My human nature doesn't resemble nature at all. Oh, that it would.
Every few years The Treasury Department has to add new security measures to our currency. The counterfeiters are getting better — the fakes harder to spot.
Some days I find I'm playing with funny money, too. Letting my mind be filled with counterfeit thoughts. Not enough. Too old. Too many mistakes made. Too small to make a difference. That's just the way it is.
And the more I let these voices hang out in my head, the more they start to sound like the truth. The fakes are harder to spot.
I have learned, though, that when the FBI trains agents to identify counterfeit bills, they do not waste their time discussing all the ways a bill might be wrong. They only study the authentic bills. The truth.
Because when you soak yourself in what is Real, it's easy to spot a Fake.
We are no different. We must let the truth of who we are so permeate our minds – our hearts – our spirits – that we brush off a lie like crumbs from a table. So intimately know the voice of our Shepherd that no wolf's imitation will turn our head.
The Gospel of Mark tells us she had been bleeding for 12 years. Tried every remedy. Consulted many doctors. Spent every penny to make it stop. It only got worse.
It must have felt hopeless.
And lonely. In those days she would have been banished for the bleeding. Her affliction as public as if she were wearing it as a scarlet letter upon her chest.
A constant affliction I can't seem to shake. A public display of my imperfections. A wound of the soul. A bleeding of my joy. A constant flow of trying to fix it myself with any available remedy and every last resource.
A touch of Jesus. The only one whose flow of blood can stop all the rest.
Perhaps it's the nostalgia that comes with knowing there are just a few months left in your 30s. The revival of these familiar songs by popular artists has added to the appeal as well.
I admit the depth of truth in these words were mostly lost on me as a 6-, 10-, 12-year old girl. And by the teenage & college years, I had repeated them too many times to find any feeling in the familiarity.
Praise choruses took over church playlists, and I left the "old" and "boring" tunes back with the giant wooden pulpit and the silver communion trays and other elements of traditional church that I remember fondly, but only in the way you think of a sweet aunt of your mother who hosted a nice lunch but you don't care to visit again.
But these days I am learning that in the way a Veteran appreciates our National Anthem more than the average fan in the stands, perhaps only a cracked and broken heart, a spirit scarred by sin and marked by imperfection, and a prisoner set free can feel the full balm of singing loudly about Amazing Grace and Counting Blessings and the Power in the Blood and about coming Just As I Am.
It is the sick who need a physician. For me, a refillable prescription from the Baptist Hymnal has been just what the doctor ordered.