Sunday Afternoon Tea

On a recent morning as the sun streamed through the lace curtains in the dining area, the room so usually dark turned a golden glow.  I half expected to see an Elf or Hobbit appear from around the corner.

There is something about light that makes me happy, whether a gift from the morning sun through lace or a vanilla scented candle lit on the coffee table on a winter's night.  God is Light... we are told Heaven has no need of any other source of light than His.  

Evil prefers dark places, the kind that give me shivers as I walk by.

I have a highly active imagination... always have... probably always will.  My family is well aware of this.  Which may explain why some who saw Miss Potter for the first time said the scenes where she talks to imagined inanimate objects reminded them of...me.  A truth never denied.

I spent my very early years living in an old farmhouse across the gravel road from the grain elevator.  If nature called after dark, one had to walk outside to use the facilities.  I think that may have been the spark of rather odd imaginations and a fear of all that goes bump in the night.

There are seasons of life where it can appear dark at noontime and one feels as if there is a "lion in the streets" (Proverbs 26:13) or if you live near a forest it could read "Bigfoot is in the woods".  Of course, either would be highly unlikely in this land of soybeans and cornfields but our emotions can deceive us into thinking that way.

Now, I do know we live in a fallen world and the enemy of our souls prowls around "like a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8).  So much so that our feelings can seem so appropriate, the circumstances of life coming upon us in such a way that we can feel the hot breath of the big kitty... and I'm not talking about Victoria.

I've had seasons of life like that where I feel as if I'm in the war for Middle Earth... you know... the scenes between the first and last episodes of the trilogy on film.  That period where it seems all we have known for ages are battles raging and raging and raging between good and evil.

I would remind God that I am not imagining an evil lion in the streets, I can see him and touch him and smell him!  He is there and you will please find me under the covers of my bed eating Hagan Daz chocolate chip mint ice cream and humming a "when we get to Heaven" tune by Mercy Me.

Forget going out to the streets, I'm not so sure about getting out of bed each morning.

But somewhere in the fog of imagination, Truth begins to shine like a thousand suns.  I learn to keep my mind settled on His Word.  If the dark night of the soul has been prolonged, it may require speaking the Name out loud throughout the day as a compass guiding toward the lights of Due North.  

All of the names of the Trinity (as an aside, the Puritan prayers certainly waxed poetic about the Trinity)... Father, Son, Holy Spirit or Abba, Jesus, Dearest Friend.  He does "restore to me the joy of my salvation".  His perfect love begins to cast out the fear of things that go bump in the night.

I think He allows those times in life where we feel the lion's prowl or think we see the shadow of life's monsters in the corners to remind us we serve a Person.  God in three persons, actually.

Not a religion or a set of traditions.  But a real Person who... like his maternal great great (etc) grandfather David... killed the lion and wrestled the bear and conquered all our giants already.  

We only have to remember He is the true Lion of Judah... the one in the shadows has no teeth.