Saturday, January 18, 2014

Sunrise/Moonset

                               SUNRISE                                       
MOONSET
Photo credit--Ayda Hamann

I'm in my house, and out the front window is the sunrise, and out of the back window is the moonset,
and I am all in wonder....saying to myself, "how can it be that both the sun and the moon appear at the same time?  I mean, the sun shines by day and the moon shines by night, and it's usually one or the other....right?  Usually it's day or it's night....usually it's bright or it's dark....right?  Well, lately that's how my mind has been thinking.  I see things as either black or white, good or bad, and right or wrong.  And to tell you the honest truth, I have been struggling with looking more on the dark side than the light side.

I struggle with depression.  It is especially bad in the winter months....and, I guess I should mention that
it comes also with being "a middle-aged woman" too! Anyone that has suffered depression can understand the light vs dark thing.  The light is present, yet we still feel like we are surrounded by darkness.  This blog isn't about me though...it's about the things that I am learning about God....it's about His goodness in the midst of darkness, and His "rightness" in the midst of our wrongness.  It's about His SONRISES in the morning and His MOONLIGHT in the night. His Light shines on through day and night, even when we are standing in the shadows of life.  My dear friend Kathy always says that there wouldn't be shadows if there wasn't a presence of light.  And she is right. 

 God, the Creator of the universe, created day AND night, each one working in harmony with the other. He balanced the day with the night so that each day would be recognized and counted. I believe He does that in our lives as well. He balances the joy and the sorrows in our lives, and through that, we gain a greater consciousness of Who He Is, and learn to make each day count.  Without darkness, we wouldn't understand light, and without trials, we wouldn't appreciate joy.  But He is ALWAYS PRESENT in it all. 

Seeing the moon set, the same time as the sunrise, helps me to remember that at the end of every darkness comes a new day, and at the end of every struggle comes a new joy as we acknowledge the LIGHT that was present in the midst of it all.  

God made two great lights—the                                                                 greater light to govern the day and                                             the lesser light to govern the night.
Genesis 1:16

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory, displayed in the face of Christ.  2 Cor. 4:6