Broken Open: Thoughts at Sunset

In a video clip at Sunday School, we listened to a young mom talk about the death of her premature son. Though the interview was taped a few years after the baby's death, the loss was still visibly raw as the mom talked about the experience through her tears. Since I'm the facilitator for the class, I'd watched the video clip more than once before sharing it. It wasn't easy to watch - even the third time around.

In it, she talked about being "broken open" rather than simply "broken."  She acknowledged that she would never be the same. At first, she tried to be the same Amy she always had been. She tried to be the same at home, at her job and with her friends. But she soon realized that she was changed and she had to grow and evolve with that change. She said that being "broken open" had forced her to give up her own agenda. It had given God a chance to fill the empty spaces with His Light.

Sunday evening, Randy was baling alfalfa. He called me on the phone.
"Hey, the sunset has the potential to be really pretty," he told me.

He rarely steers me wrong, so I grabbed the camera and left the air-conditioned house for a twilight drive down country roads. And as I looked for places to capture the day's end, I again thought about the young mother's story and her thoughts about being broken open.

 

A crystal clear day doesn't produce a spectacular sunset. It just doesn't.

Adding a "frame" formed by a pasture gate.

It's the clouds that paint the evening's colorful canvas with texture and variety.

As the light played peekaboo with the clouds, the scene shifted with each passing minute. 

A look to the east provided a whole different perspective on the evening's light show.

Most of us would prefer our lives to be "cloud free." But it was not that kind of week last week around here.

Looking east over a neighbor's soybean field

But maybe - just maybe - those "cloudy" days can have some beauty after all if we're open to letting the Light shine through them.

I likely have a different perspective about clouds anyway. And, as a farm partner, all the rain clouds this month have been welcome. Though we aren't out of drought conditions, the rainfall this summer has been beneficial after a dry winter and early spring. So the rumble of faraway thunder was a welcome accompaniment to the full-screen picture show.

A Time to Think

Without faith, we are as stained glass windows in the dark.
--Anonymous

FYI:  The video clip is part of Scott J. Jones' The Wesleyan Way: A Faith That Matters.