moments of grace

 image: DebKennedy images moment of grace #1

darkness and light

As I am working my way through this book, I am beginning

to 'see' many things in a different light.

Ever since I can remember, I have thought of stars in the night sky

as pinpoints of light from Heaven. 

I have no idea if I read this somewhere as a child, or heard it, 

or if it just formed as a thought in my head back then and has never left me.

But when I look up into the night sky, what I imagine is that

alllllllll of those stars I see are really actually the light that shines in Heaven, 

streaming through teeny tiny holes 

in a big huge piece of black velvet, stretched out across infinity. 

The Universe is a dark blanket of soft, lush fabric that separates Heaven from Earth, 

and the light comes through in those little pinhole spots.

I also wonder about whether or not our loved ones in Heaven can SEE us

through those little pinholes. And if maybe that's why the holes are there.
I have grandparents and an uncle, and three babies, and a special cousin in Heaven,
and sometimes it is comforting to think of them watching over me.

Sometimes I think yes, it's possible....other times no. I'll never know. 

(Until I am there, of course, and then I might not even remember the question!)

When I lived, for that all-too-short period of time, on my beautiful farm 
on a beautiful island, 
where it was pitch black at night,
I would stand at the window in the guest room, alone,
and stare out into the night sky.
I could see millions - millions! - of stars there
and the big bright moon. I saw the 'supermoon' from there last year.
I would stand and stare and breathe and pray, and talk softly to God.

I felt His presence in the night, in the dark, 
as if He were watching over me patiently
as I groped and reached and yearned for
what I knew was missing...

Grace. 

Part of the 'work' of reading this book is starting a gratitude journal, 

a list of One Thousand Gifts of Grace. 

They can - and will - be the smallest, most insignificant things

the ones we usually overlook in the day to day

kind of like the stars that are up there all the time, 

but the darkness is what makes them visible.

AHA!

And there it is.

We often can't see God's Grace when the sun shines

when life is sunny and happy and bright

because we see the easy blessing.

and sometimes, 

when the darkness falls, we think it's the worst thing that could happen

because it overcomes the light.

But the darkness (whatever form it takes) reveals those

pinpoints of light,

tiny little holes where

Grace shimmers in.

God's light, the illumination of the message He has been trying to send us,

suddenly becomes clear.

It's been there all along, 

we were just too blinded by the light to see it.

(no singing old Manfred Mann lyrics there, girls ;0) )

And as we sit in the quiet (or perhaps raging) darkness of our lives,

the velvet unfolds around us, wraps us up in the Universe, 

and divulges the wonder of millions and millions of graces

surrounding us with the certainty

that God is there.

He has not left us alone in the night.

He is there

in the velvet darkness

and the shimmering pinpoints of light

and the mesmerizing vision of how BIG it all is around us. All the time.

SO

my journal

isn't going to be a list on a page like Ann's is in her book.

Mine is going to be a thousand pinpoints of light seen through a lens and an aperture.

Moments of Grace, captured in images.

There won't be any order to them, or priority in the way I capture and share them.

Nope. I'm doing this totally on faith.

Every day, I expect to see - to grasp - a moment of grace.

Because now, I am LOOKING for them. 

And I know He will let me see the light. Even - maybe especially - through a pinhole.