My house sits on a curvy street. This is very difficult for a directionally-challenged person because I can’t quite get it straight in my head whether I’m facing north or south or somewhere in between. I just know that in the summer, I have more sunshine in the back part of the house. In the winter, the front is sunnier. The sun comes up somewhere in the general direction of Matt and Dawn’s house and it sets in the direction I travel to go to Tahlequah. That would be East and West, wouldn’t it? Lovely trees surround my house too. Trees are some of my favorite things but they do have a tendency to make a house dark.
Yesterday morning I noticed tree shadows dancing across my dining table and playing on the kitchen wall. It was the morning sun beaming through the branches of the maple but, crazily, I had the urge to dance with those leafy shapes. The thought came to me that this is like life: shadows and sunshine.
The women’s retreat I attended yesterday with my daughter-in-law, Dawn, was a sunshine event. We women gathered at the church she and Matt and the children attend and had a wonderful time. Dawn had decorated the tables beautifully and her presentation as well as the other presentations were designed to shine the light of the Lord into the heart and mind of each woman present. She actually had us making lemonade, demonstrating the principle of turning life’s sour times into something good.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it perfectly (of course) in The Song of Hiawatha, Life is checkered shade and sunshine. Sure, trees around my house do make it darker than I would like but, hey! without them, I wouldn’t have those playful shadows doing a fandango across my kitchen wall.
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