As the last day of my semester comes to a close, I can't help but start to get excited about the Christmas festivities that wait for me when I drive home tomorrow. Seeing family and friends, having over 3 weeks away from classes, drama, and stress, and just being lazy- you can't get much better than that. I couldn't be more excited to drive with my family up to the condo in Michigan and get snowed in, with 5 feet of snow blocking our driveway and a frozen Lake Michigan sunset every night. Then the thought hits me..."sunset every night"...interesting that this thought should pop into my head. Ironic that the one place in the country that my parents and grandparents should decide to buy a condo for the whole family to enjoy...would be one of the best places to see a sunset...as much in the winter time as in the summer time, and even more ironic that I should randomly think about sunsets. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me..that I should be thinking about sunsets the last night of the semester of my junior year at IU.
God invented sunsets. More specifically..God invented everything, but in this case, sunsets are the topic at hand. Each day rolls to a close, and God made sunsets to put a seal on whatever that day held in our lives. Whether we experienced happiness, grief, stress, or peace, the day ends with this seal, we take a period of rest, and start the cycle again anew. fresh. untainted. pure.
Yet...I have to pause and think. Yes, each day ends with a sunset, but just like that...each morning begins with a sunrise. A SUNRISE. The very first sunrise that I can remember happened to be in the wintertime. I was about 6 years old and was allowed to wake up with my father and older brothers and go "ice climbing", which involved my brothers and father going out on the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan and climbing up and down and around the makeshift ice formations that the wind and cold had formed on the lake's surface. It was a big moment in my 6 year old existence, but what I remembered the most wasn't the excitement of climbing those 15ft ice mounds. It was what I woke up to, outside my window. I had never seen anything in my life. I had been awake for the sunsets all before..seeing the reds and oranges and yellows..but I had never seen this..
In a wholly different direction in the sky were so many colors I had never seen before in the sky...purple, blue mixed with orange, red, navy. It was just as glorious as a sunset, if not more so because in this cold, frozen existence, I saw God for the very first time that I could ever remember.
So why tonight..of all nights should I remember this? I'm not sure. I cannot begin to fathom what God has in store for me this next semester, but I know that His will reigns supreme. The first thing that I plan to do when we arrive in Michigan is to wake up that very next day at the break of dawn, and experience that again. I came face to face with God. And it was beautiful. Talk about initiative to live a life glorifying Him.
Check it out sometime.
No comments:
Post a Comment