Light and life

I love light. My husband went over our house plans with the builder and drew on all the walls, adding windows for more light.  I would migrate from sun patch to sun patch in the gloomy days of my own darkness, seeking the illumination my soul needed, finding it only momentarily in the sunlight pouring in those windows.  Even now I sleep in the east facing bedroom- the sun rises and pours in another day. 

This afternoon, I was just going down my to-do list - cleaning out the garage, emptying boxes, stacking cardboard. Ordinary life. 

Then there, in the corner of my eye, was a cloud. A magnificent cloud billowing over the distant hills the setting sun lighting the underbelly, like a glimpse of a breaching whale. 

I had tasks to do, things to finish. My big, beautiful camera that would capture that light is broken.  All I have is my phone camera and a pile of boxes to break down.  But the light calls and I follow.

 As I drive in my car, I  catch glimpses of sun on an old logging trail. Sun filtering through trees, sun on the lake in the distance.  Even as I stop and aim, I know my limited camera isn’t capturing what I’m seeing. The beauty that I want to show forever in an image escapes me.

 And I love words, which can be even more elusive than perfect light.Likewise, my thoughts are as shy as the quivering deer eyeing me from the shelter of the pines, the hare that darts across the gravel in front of me.  Here now, and gone again. 

And yet, just as I get in my car and chase the light, I sit at my computer and dig for the thoughts before they take wings and fly away, like geese in a streaming V . Lately, I've had more conversations with people who view the world so different from my safe circle of suburban believers.  I wonder if I have the right words to express what I see inside, what I know to be truth. 


In my roaming, I see the lacy edge of young pines on the reflection of a pink sky, a motionless lake quiet in the evening light.  But my camera doesn’t capture it perfectly. 


And I see glimpse and signposts all over my life that shout “You are loved!  Life is good! God is good.  Run home,  He's waiting with open arms.”  I am so aware of the goodness and grace of God in my life. Jus as I'm aware of the beauty of this afternoon, beauty that fills my eyes and catches in my throat.

And yet I often don't have the words to perfectly capture my thoughts, to express the beauty, not of creation, but of the Creator.

I stand on a lonely hill and turn in a full circle and I'm overwhelmed by the raw omnipotence of God who has created hills that roll in enormous waves,  a giant hill family wrapped in soft, spring green slumber side by side, daddy hills, mama hills, baby hills all tucked into the edge of the prairie. Here cattle and deer graze on tender, new grass.  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and I can see the abundance of His hands as I twirl in the dusty gravel. Dark hills loom in the fading light. Fence posts march up the nearest rise. The road meanders on and on.

In the forest, there are glimpses of the lake, the light, the setting sun. Here on the open range, the bigness of this land is not a glimpse but a gasp.  And I've had a lifetime of enough glimpses of the goodness of God to know that the full picture of His grace and mercy is more than enough. So I capture a sorry image of the beauty that feeds my soul.  And I capture a word or two, ponder a verse, pray my words are enough.  

And if my images stir a longing for beauty, even more may my words, not be answers, but merely an invitation to ask the questions.  A stirring to see glimpses of the beauty and love that are within the heart of God. 

I chase the light.  And I am captured.