Sunbeams

Yesterday afternoon the sky was piled high with the kind of towering cloud formations that make a desert rat like myself unabashedly giddy. And the sun shone through the clouds so that the sky was full of sunbeams. As I stared up in wonder at a sky full of shafts and pillars and columns of light, I thought about how you can really only see sunbeams when the sun pierces through a veil of clouds. When the sun blazes in a clear blue sky you can't really see the light (although in Arizona right now you can be almost bludgeoned by it). The light fills the whole sky and it's impossible to distinguish any one ray of light from any other. But when it shines through the clouds you get these beautiful sunbeams. None of us like to have our minds and our hearts clouded with doubt and worry and confusion. We all wish that the light of Christ and revelation from God would blaze into our souls from a clear blue sky. But when instead that light and revelation pierces through our veil of forgetfulness and doubt and confusion, we are able to perceive the individual sunbeams. Each prompting of the spirit, each moment of clarity means so much more and is so much easier to recognize because of the doubts and fears we have fought to overcome, not in spite of them. The ancient Vikings used to navigate the Northern seas with these special rocks called sunstones. These were translucent stones whose crystals were composed in a special way so as to polarize the light in such a way that even on a gloomy cloudy day, these stones would still fill with light when held up to where the sun was located, allowing the Vikings to find their way. Sometimes our days are clear and bright without a cloud in sight. Some days our fears and doubts smother us so much we are convinced that we'll never see the Sun again. But as we search the heavens with our sunstone of prayer, scripture study, and personal revelation, we will find the sun even as we walk through the mists of darkness. And as impossible as it may sometimes seem, the sun will pierce through our veil of doubt and confusion, and the sunbeams will seem all the brighter and more glorious for having to fight through the darkness.