Meditation Monday – Let Your Light Shine

Each one of us is like a stained glass window – beautiful, colourful and translucent said our rector Cherry Hairston in a recent sermon. We are all beautiful in ourselves but made even more beautiful by the light of God that shines through us revealing an inner translucence that is breathtaking.

Part of the beauty of stained glass is that it is exactly that – the colours are not painted on but are deliberately created in the manufacture of the glass by the addition of metallic salts.

What is your response?

Read Psalm 139: 13-18. Look at yourself in a mirror. Look at the beauty God has created in the uniqueness of your features. The amazing complexity of each part of your body that was formed in your mother’s womb.

Read Psalm 139: 13-18 a second time. Visualize the “colours” that God has created in who you are that give you a unique luminescence when light shines through. Thank God for the beauty of who you are created to be.

Creation too is like stained glass, colourful, beautiful and translucent. The glory of God shines through it in vibrant colours.

What is your response:

Take a walk outside. Where do you see the the glory of God shining through with that inner luminescence? Take some photos of your favourite “translucent” scenes. Write about them in your journal. Thank God for the glory that shines through all creation.

Often when we look at ourselves in a mirror, it is the flaws rather than the beauty we are most aware of. And in creation it is the pollution and the de-afforestation that can be most arresting. Yet the glory of God shines not just through a pristine untouched landscape, but through the pollution that makes the sky blaze with a glorious sunset, and through the mist that rises from a toxic stream.

What is your response.

Look at yourself in the mirror again. What flaws catch your attention? Now think about your personality and flaws you are aware of. Often it is our wounded areas that glow most brightly with the inner translucence of God.What are the wounded places in your life that glow with God’s presence? Write them down and thank God for divine light that shines in and through you.

Now listen to the song below and read through these lyrics of the refrain. What else is God saying to you today? How might you respond?

Let your light shine.
Let your love show
It’s a short ride
Down the long road.
When the rains come
And the winds blow
Let your light shine
Wherever you go.