The Quality of Light

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Take delight in the Lord,

and he shall give you your heart’s desires.

Psalm 37:4

Already the quality of the light has begun to change. My morning commute no longer begins in pitch black, and the days are clearly lengthening. As I crest a hill in my evening drive I encounter a twilight I haven’t seen for months. The bare trees silhouetted against the copper horizon stretch the tips of their branches into a sky that is already disappearing into midnight blue as one lone bright star heralds the coming night.

Of course, the light has been changing for weeks. But now I see. Now I notice and take in the promise. In the midst of the bleak and deadening cold, emerge the inevitability of spring and the assurance of new life. 

And as I delight in the horizon and the trees and the colors and that one bright star, my heart expands to encompass God’s glory. In my soul, too, the light had begun to change. Now is the season for paying attention. Now is the time to traverse the wilderness. Now is the hour to remember what God can do with dust.

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