Visualizing Peace

Another hard day.  More tears.  More uncertainty.  More frustration.  More stress.  More doubt.

I was thinking about stained glass tonight...how the colorful beams of light continue to dance across the stone floors of cathedrals even when no one shows up for church.  How you can't appreciate their beauty unless you're in some sort of darkness with which to contrast it.  When it's dark inside, the light illuminates the interior...when it's dark outside and the light shines from within, it stands as a testament of beauty, order, peace to the rest of the world.

I think God's work in my life is like the light through stained glass windows.

When God's light is shining through me, when my actions are aligned with His will and when I'm focusing on living a life for Him, the beauty of God's magnificence is made manifest through my life, and other people can benefit from the light that God is revealing through me.  I am a vessel for God's light to bring comfort to those who are surrounded by darkness.

But when my own soul is darkened, depressed, downtrodden, and desperate, when the darkness lies within rather than without, that is when God's love still shines through.  And, like dawn's rays cast colorful spots of light across stone and marble floors even when the church doors are shut and no one has entered in to worship God in that space, the effects of the light remain.  Just like God continues to work in my life even when I refuse to pay him any attention.

God illuminates my soul - empty, abandoned, forgotten, and neglected as it is.  Beauty remains, and beauty will return.