Keeping Out the Light

Some of you know that I am a poor sleeper. A modest medical condition, an overactive mind and the early daylight rendered this summer a bleary-eyed and somewhat dozy season. Thankfully, a relative’s acquaintance offered me some lined and thick velour curtains, dyed a rich crimson. With an eight-foot drop, they prevent most light from entering the room, which convinces my mind it is still time to slumber. During the coming winter’s later mornings, their primary function will be to keep out the cold from an unheated chamber. I am rather pleased with them. Never in my long life have I been so excited about curtains.

Although the giver was not inspired by religious motivations, I was a recipient of someone’s charity for which I remain grateful. I only wish I'd been given them sooner, when the daylight seeped into my room at 4am. In our homes, churches and lives, however, I think we have the opposite problem: keeping out the darkness. When worldly values, practices and motives infiltrate the churches, the curtains need opening and eternal light is needed to flood in and expel that which is dim and dusky. May the Bible ever be our guide and rule in all matters of faith and conduct. Scientifically, darkness is not real, it is merely the absence of light; spiritually, darkness is certainly real, palpable even, and it must be kept at bay.