Today’s sunset was so beautiful in tropical colors of cherry pink and tangerine and lavender. I was cooking supper and running back and forth to the lady den to look out the windows to see what colors Mother Nature had on her paint brushes. She dipped her watercolor brushes in cherry pink and stroked the sun kissed pink across the sky and painted layers of tangerine and lavender and purple across the horizon, each brush stroke blending into each other and the pale turquoise of the high sky. A few cotton candy clouds were shaded golden yellow quickly melted away. The clouds in their beautiful shades were folded up like exquisite heirloom quilts stacked in a grandmother’s antique armoire. The sunset pageant had begun with a yellow glow from the sun’s formal gown and once her gown touched the horizon it blazed up in a wildfire of tropical colors and burned out quickly.

I continued watching the sunset through a mystical twilight and watched the blackness of night cross the horizon, gathering up all the clouds between the sky and the horizon, till the horizon was completely zipped up in blackness. Father Sky waked the moon, dragging him in his silver suit to the night stage where he could stand high in the velvet night sky and conduct the pageant of the twinkling stars. The soporiferous darkness of night was wide awake, beautiful in its quietness. The tranquility of night is so wondrous. The day has gone to bed and the night sounds come alive.

The night sky is part of God’s handiwork and his glory. He’s created the sun and the clouds and the moon and the twinkling stars and has promised us the sun will shine when the darkness ends. The sunrise symbolizes hope for a new day, a new beginning free of yesterday’s burdens we let rest in God’s hands through our prayers.

My friend sent me this quote today and I love it. “Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you,” Walt Whitman. It would be sad to not have any sunshine in your life and sadly there are folks who probably never feel a ray. I’ve got lots of sunshine in my life and I know I’m fortunate. I’ve weathered a few cloudy storms but my faith always brings the rays back.

The darkest part of my life with Chief was a death of our daughter. A storm of darkness over took me and Chief and brought us to our knees. Just when we were about to give up a tiny ray of sunshine poked through and gave us hope of days ahead. It took a lot of prayers and support from each other and help from friends and family for me and Chief to weather that storm of grief. I was caught up in another storm when Chief died and I honestly thought I would never find happiness or joy again in my lifetime. I could not understand how the sun could shine without him. But little by little rays of sunshine began shining in my life.

Keeping your face towards the sunshine sounds great, but life can cloud up at any given moment and block out the sun. Sometimes it’s hard to part the clouds and find the sun. Eventually, the sun will break through and our lives will continue on. Our journeys may take a different path or go a different way than what we desire, but we’re guaranteed the sunshine if we have faith in the Lord’s holy light.

I think sometimes we have to turn out the lights at night to see the brightness of day in our lives. “If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens,” James E. Faust. If we didn’t experience the dark days in life we’d never appreciate all the days lighted by God’s love. Just like we wouldn’t appreciate the wonder of the new day if we didn’t experience the beauty of a dark night.

Think about how many days Noah and his family members floated in the darkness of the Lord’s flooding rainstorm till the clouds parted and the sun shone down on the ark. Wonder if they had given up on the thoughts of seeing sunshine again. Don’t ever give up! Wait for the next sunrise and pray the sun comes back in your life. If you have faith in the Lord, the sun will eventually shine. John 8:12 reads, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” — Desmond Tutu