Light

100_1959

Originally uploaded by amandajmorgan81

I couldn’t figure out how to get this picture in the last post…so here it is in a new one.

Dawn

100_2025Originally uploaded by amandajmorgan81

I returned from my trip to Kenya about six months ago now (hard to believe!), and so I figured I should wrap up the occasional reflections about my trip. Kenya was a bit of a turning point for me in my life with God, or I should say, in the way he has been silent for the past few years. I felt his presence in a few fresh ways during the course of my two weeks there – nothing spectacular, but sort of like the smell of coffee in the morning that tells you the day is breaking and it’s time to get up.

God’s aroma was particularly noticeable to me on the final morning of our trip. We were on safari in the Masai Mara at the Kenya-Tanzania border, and I got up early that morning to watch the sun rise over the Tanzania horizon. Here’s what I wrote in my journal:

Just saw the sun rise over Tanzania to the east and my soul remembered what I recently read in Nouwen’s book Gracias, that “God exists.” When you see God pull the day into her existence, you surely know that life is not about you. Still, even when all of creation points to God’s beauty, when I am wrapped by his gentle breeze it’s easier to believe that he loves me, that I am his, and that he knows me as well as he knows when it’s time for the sun to come up.

My heart begins to sing: “The whole earth is filled with your glory…angels and men adore, creation waits for what’s in store. May you be honored and glorified, exalted and lifted high. Here at your feet I lay my life.” And from another song: “God kissed me with a promise, God kissed me with hope for a future. Your beauty, it looks like righteousness…I’m in love with Justice.”

I can’t look at the sun that’s rising; it’s already too bright. And it turns darkness into day. So too, the Son of God will rise on a new day and turn my darkness into bright clarity. When the light kisses the night, you don’t focus on what is illuminated at first. First you are drawn to the light source itself. In fact, when the sun is still cloaked in the robe of darkness, it’s even more captivating; It’s tame enough to truly see. First, you focus on the glory of the light source, then you admire and enjoy and respond to what the light makes visible.

Last night I woke up at two a.m. to the darkest night I’d ever known, here in the middle of the Kenyan bush. I couldn’t see my hand in front of me, and I had to force myself back to sleep so I wasn’t consumed with fear.

In this sunrise, God is whispering that I need to stop focusing on the darkness in my life. I think he wants to take my breath away with his source of light – his Son.

Six months later, the Son is a little brighter in my life, and I am finding myself in the position again where I must choose to gaze at his beauty rather than fear the darkness.