Leaving the Christmas lights up year round provides an ongoing illusion of cheer and seasonal togetherness. I like the way that feels. As if tomorrow morning we’ll all come down the stairs in our pajamas to a glowing room full of things our parents bought for us without any expectation of repayment. But its August the 7th, and my parents live in a different town now. Maybe they would like the lights if they visited for some reason, but came at night so the braided green wires didn’t just look tacky draped around the room.

I dont ever want to miss a day with God. I always think of it. See our relationship is something precious and bright, and it isn’t an illusion of joy like Christmas lights in summer.

Once a day here at my job in college, at a $7-a-plate restaurant across an intersection from the University, the sun suddenly suspends itself right over the awning for a while and shoots through the window for about ten minutes in brilliant orange. Before it disappears behind the building across the street, it colors the whole restaurant and illuminates every dust particle on its way across the dining room and into my squinty eyes. When I had glasses, if they weren’t really clean when that time of day came around, all the fingerprints and scratches would come out in the direct sunlight. I would usually just take them off at this point.

He is more like that light to me. Whenever he comes around I am blinded and mesmerized by him. See he could become just something I come home to, something I’m not shocked to see like the summer Christmas lights in my living room that lost thier novelty in the spring. I need to keep making the most of every moment I have with him, and not grow into grown-up complacency. For he is a very constant friend to me and a failproof companion I cannot see but know very well as my rock and salvation.

That resturant will be gone someday, but as long as God holds back his wrath on the Earth, the sun will return to that place every evening, whether veiled by clouds or not. I want to see him like that everyday, blaring into my dark, wicked life with his brilliant light, making me cover my face and eyes in shame and unspeakable joy to see that I’m not half as bad as he is good!

I pray all the time that he will brightly blind the eyes of my generation in the same way so they can be as overwhelmed with his glory and goodness as I am.