Light Through the Window, Light Through Your Life

 It starts as a pile of broken glass.  Sharp edges.  Odd shapes.  Not much different than what you might see in the colored glass bin at a recycling facility.  Then, using classic techniques developed through the centuries, the glass is arranged and bonded together, piece by piece, until an image begins to emerge.  One which capture's the designer's original intent.  Still, when it's completed and sitting on the shop bench, beautiful as it is, something is missing.  Its full glory is yet to be revealed.

But then the newly created stained glass window is taken and put in its frame and placed where it was intended to be all along.  A church door.  A balcony window.  A transom over an office entrance.  At the top of a stairway.

Years ago,

the church I was serving was installing some brand-new stained-glass windows.  As the installers of the new windows were putting on the finishing touches, I stepped into the narthex, the church entryway, to check on their progress.  It was late afternoon.

"They look great," I said to one of the installers.

"They do," he said, "they look so much better here than in the shop.  They need to be in context."

I nodded.

He then pointed to the cross design, surrounded by rays of yellow, orange and red.

"When the light hits that one," he said, "It will be on fire!"

And so it was!  For what was missing on the shop bench was light.  It changed from a pretty but dull picture into an amazing image of beauty and hope!  Its full glory was truly revealed.

And as it is with stained glass, so it is with us.  When we are in the right place--and that will be different for each of us--when we our broken pieces are assemble and exposed to the light of God's love, then we too become amazing images of beauty and hope!

(Photo:  Rose window at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ)