One of my favorite stories from college is about a time that me and a girls group from the BCM (Baptist collegiate ministries) went to visit some folks at a nursing home. I don’t remember the specific occasion but we were just planning on playing some games and hanging out with the ladies living at this particular nursing home. We all sat in a circle and started introducing ourselves with the addition of an icebreaker question, Do you prefer sunrise or sunset? One by one we explained, who we were, where we were from, and our preferred celestial anomaly. I don’t remember my response, but it was most likely sunset because as many of you know I don’t like to get up early! It came to be one of the (advanced in years) ladies turns and she said her name, where she was from, and that she preferred the sunrise……set. That’s it! That’s all she said! Period the end. Whether she meant to imply that she liked both or just couldn’t get the neurons to snap in time to answer a particular way I can’t say. While at the time this response was extremely humorous, looking back at this response a few days later, I began to see the many implications of what she said.
If I get too far out into space I’m sorry but here it goes, first implication, we want both. We want to see as many sunrises as we can and we hope to make it to the end of that day with the sunset, and so on and so forth. That is the literal implication and a valid point of view.
Second implication, being somewhat metaphorical, the sunset represents darkness or shadow and the sunrise represents light and more specifically sunshine. Without the sunset we don’t have and/or are able to appreciate the sunrise. Switchfoot explains this concept beautifully in a song called, the shadow proves the sunshine (attached below.) If I had the option to just put a Switchfoot song as each of my blog entries and thats all I would totally do that! There is so much truth in their songs and they are one of my all time favorite bands!
Of course I’m reading into something that was very minimal. If it was even meaningful to the woman who spoke it, but I truly feel that God places lots of shadows and darkness in our lives so that we are able to soak in the sunshine and treasure it more. The challenges of life are where we grow the most and I welcome the challenges of this year knowing that I have so much growing to do still! This blog is still in progress by the way!
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:2-3
Switchfoot song link is here –>
