Friday, May 27, 2005
A Little Light Behind the Curtain
It's simply amazing what a little light can do for a dark room. I have been sitting in this hotel room now for over two days, while Karim sleeps, with the curtain closed to shut out the light. The boredom is enough to make me sit in the corner babbling and drooling on myself...where are the cookies? But, this morning, the curtain didn't get closed quite as tightly as it normally does. The edge of the curtain is flush with the window, and although I cannot see even a tiny bit of the window, the light is peeking around the corner in such a way as to brighten the room considerably, not enough to awaken the sleeping Egyptian Prince, but just enough to keep me from going cuckoo. My temper has eased nicely, and I'm much more optimistic than I was yesterday.
Symbolically, hope and the lack of it can create the same reactions. If we "sit" through our lives without hope, we become depressed, pessimistic and outright nasty people. I speak from experience. I can often be quite "hopeless" in a pitiful sort of way, pouting and moaning the blues about how we "don't have this", and "when will it be our turn to have a life?" I forget to see the light behind the curtain. But, when I stop pouting and look, REALLY look, at the situation, I realize that EVERYTHING in life is temporary, that things CAN'T stay the same; I see that our situation, though bleak, is only for a time. "This, too, shall pass." If my life were written in scripture, it would start with the words, "and it came to pass"...meaning, this is the purpose, "to pass"...to go on...to start at one end and go to the other. There is hope. This situation will not remain.
There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. Hosea 2:15 (This one means a lot to me.)
And among His Signs, He shows you the lightning, by way both of fear and of hope, and He sends down rain from the sky and with it gives life to the earth after it is dead: verily in that are Signs for those who are wise. ArRum 24
The curtain only hides the light, but the light is still there.
Symbolically, hope and the lack of it can create the same reactions. If we "sit" through our lives without hope, we become depressed, pessimistic and outright nasty people. I speak from experience. I can often be quite "hopeless" in a pitiful sort of way, pouting and moaning the blues about how we "don't have this", and "when will it be our turn to have a life?" I forget to see the light behind the curtain. But, when I stop pouting and look, REALLY look, at the situation, I realize that EVERYTHING in life is temporary, that things CAN'T stay the same; I see that our situation, though bleak, is only for a time. "This, too, shall pass." If my life were written in scripture, it would start with the words, "and it came to pass"...meaning, this is the purpose, "to pass"...to go on...to start at one end and go to the other. There is hope. This situation will not remain.
There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. Hosea 2:15 (This one means a lot to me.)
And among His Signs, He shows you the lightning, by way both of fear and of hope, and He sends down rain from the sky and with it gives life to the earth after it is dead: verily in that are Signs for those who are wise. ArRum 24
The curtain only hides the light, but the light is still there.
