Dusky Light, Surprising Reflection, Lovely Shadow

January 8, 2020

DUSKY LIGHT, SURPRISING REFLECTION, LOVELY SHADOW

The suggestions I’m following for this year’s gratitude journal come from Ann Voskamp, and coming from a woman’s perspective, often feel a bit odd to me, but thinking outside our own private boxes is not such a bad idea, so I soldier on.

1.  The Christmas tree and its ornaments are all packed away for another year (that’s right—we have an artificial), the decorations have been taken down, and for all intents and purposes, the house is back to normal. Almost. Linda LOVES her carolers, and hasn’t quite yet been able to bring herself to stuff them back into their tote homes for the year. Wherever I look, these diminutive men and women peer down at me from every conceivable flat surface in the house except the kitchen counters and dining room table. There are Salvation Army carolers, Victorian carolers, a butcher, postman, lamplighter, and an assortment of musicians silently plying away on everything from sackbut to string bass. Most of them stand amid tiny lights that give off a soft glow in the darkness. Dusky light, it must be, for I wouldn’t be able to read by them, although I can appreciate the songs they represent.

2. St. James says, “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

James 1:23-25 NKJV

The Holy Scriptures not only reveal God to me, they reveal myself to me. The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” (17:9) I imagine myself to be honest, compassionate, industrious, until I get my nose into the Bible. I don’t suppose I’m the worst person in the world, but stacked up against the standard of Jesus Christ, I fall woefully short. The only way I know that is when I see him revealed, and then see myself reflected, in the Word. When I get up in the morning and see myself peering back at me in the bathroom mirror, there is much work to be done to make myself presentable for the day. And when I see myself reflected in the Scriptures, I know there is much work to be done to make me presentable to my Lord. I don’t always like what I see, but am thankful for an accurate reflection, without which I could never grow.

3. What would make a shadow lovely? When I think of shadows, images of dark, sinister beings or people come to mind—hiding in the dark to accomplish nefarious acts, flitting on silent feet from cover to cover to avoid exposure, shrinking from the light. Terrible things happen in the shadows, and dark thoughts and deeds are hatched there. 

But in the summertime when the sun beats down, raising droplets of sweat on my brow, the shadows are a pleasant place to be. Linda loves the sun. She can lay, basking in its glory, baking in its rays. Not me. The least exposure, and the sweat is dripping into my eyes, making it hard to see. I’m constantly wiping my brow, longing for the sweet, soft, shade. The Bible says, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” (Ps. 91:1). In a desert land, a shadow is a welcome place, and when my soul feels parched and dry, the shadow of the Almighty is a good place to be.