Reflections of Light

One chilly, fall morning during my prayer time, I was gazing into the pond by the waterfall that was built in remembrance of my son — lost in thought. Suddenly, my thoughts were rudely interrupted as my mind took a right turn and I ended up thinking about how nasty the water in the pond looked — and when I would ever have time to clean it out. Dead leaves had piled up on the bottom and there were the beginnings of a gruesome black sludge forming from the dead leaves.

Since it was the Fall season, the red and yellow leaves on the trees above the waterfall created a beautiful reflection on the top of the water. When you looked at the reflection covering the top of the water, you saw beauty. But when you looked into the pond down past the reflection into the water, you saw — black sludge! The thought crossed my mind of how I couldn’t look at two things at once — I could look at the beautiful reflection on top of the water, or I could look at the sludge below but I couldn’t see both at the same time. My eyes started to look at one side of this coin and then the other, darting quickly back and forth. (I know, I know — I was supposed to have been praying!)

I felt God smiling at my thoughts and looking over my shoulder at the water with me. That “still, small Voice” said, “That’s how life is. You can either look at the beauty or the ugliness but you can’t see both at the same time. What you see depends on what you are concentrating on.”

I said, “Wow! Your right, God!” I stopped then and reminded myself for the 100th time that HE’S ALWAYS RIGHT!  I then said a quick apology for saying such a silly thing yet again.

As I took that in and mused over the life lesson of either concentrating on the beauty or the ugliness of life, He said, “What is it that allows you see the reflection of the beauty above instead of the sludge below?”

I am not a Rocket Scientist but even I knew the answer to that one. So I quickly answered, “Light! You can’t see the beauty without the light.” As I said it, I realized that God is Light. And you can’t see the beauty of life without the Light.

God just smiled.  And so did I.

They say in the Bible that there is no sun in Heaven. There is no need since God is so radiant. God IS the Light in Heaven!

“The city (speaking of Heaven) does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” Revelation 21:24