sunshine

So, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment, leaning up against the couch enjoying the long-gone sunshine that is hear today. It has been so gray and cloudy and gloomy-feeling the last few weeks that this sunshine is absolutely glorious. Just a few minutes ago I was standing on the deck with my roommates basking in the sun, not wanting to come in, even though the wind made it a little bit nippy to be out there.

Now I'm thinking about how that can apply to our spiritual lives. We go through times when everything seems so dark and gloomy, and then we're out in the glorious sunshine, enjoying life. Both kinds of times are incredibly important. We may prefer the times of the sunshine more, but the dark times are also important. Really the times of sunshine would cease to be so amazing if we didn't have the dark times as well. The dark times, make the sunshine that follows all the more glorious! We need both, even though we may not want both.

I can definitely see this in my life. January, for the most part, has been one of those times of enjoying the sunshine in my spiritual life . . . and it has been glorious. But most of my fall was a dark time, a hard time. And that is what makes this time all the more glorious and exciting and enjoyable. Without my fall having been as dark as it was, I know that I wouldn't have enjoyed the sunshine of this past month so much.

So, maybe the next time life gets hard and dark, we need to take refuge in the fact that the sunshine is coming. And it will be all the more glorious because of the hard times.