Light and Life

Light is the way the sun shines through the living-room windows in the mornings, and the way we open all the shades even when it’s freezing to get just a little bit more of that heat.

Light is the way the newly-minted toddler talks on the monitor in the mornings, waking up slowly and getting louder and louder as he does. And it’s the way that, when I go to get him, he smiles and points to where he dropped his paci on this particular morning.

Light is the girlie’s face when she’s deep into telling a story, with her animals around her and her imagination spilling out of her mouth in the most amazing ways.

Light is the remnants of the day, just before it’s time to clean up, and the realization that I’ve never lived a life this colorful before.

Light is, and we can choose to see it or to pass it by, to embrace it or to name it something else, something different. But no matter the names we call it, no matter how well our eyes work and how much we let what they see into our lives, light is.

There’s comfort in that, comfort in knowing the light is there even when I can’t see it. Because the light is bigger than I am, it shines on, even when weariness or grief or illness close my eyes, or when sorrow and confusion make me turn away. The light is there, and one day I will see it again.

There is light, I’ve learned, even in the darkest of nights. In those moments of deepest pain, sorrow, shame, when I can’t find my way out, light is still there. It’s about believing that it’s there even when I can’t find it, about choosing to keep believing even when I can’t see.

When it comes down to it, isn’t that most of life, in one way or another? Aren’t we constantly asked to believe in things we can’t see, to choose between two things when we can’t see our way through either of them? Trusting that light is there isn’t any different.

Linking this with Emily today, because it fits.