I live in the “Sunshine State.” This is no mere tourist slogan, I assure you. This is the truth. And, after ten years in Chicago, I was utterly unprepared for it.
Do you know what it is to long for darkness?
Recently, our skies were heavy and dark for four days. This is unheard of here. Oh, we get plenty of rain: towering, fierce clouds and thunder to rattle your bones, but it rarely lasts long. But this was a nor’easter. For four days it rained, and the leaden clouds never dispersed. Until … they did. The sun came back, the blue sky that is our constant Florida refrain finally returned, and I could have wept. I wanted those clouds back.
Foolish? Perhaps. But here is what I love about darkness: it is the fitting backdrop to hot tea, hot coffee, and hot cocoa (I do like my drinks hot). It is “cozy” weather, as my kids say. Poor things. Here, in Florida, when a summer thunderstorm begins they out-shout the thunder: “Let’s get cozy!” We burrow beneath pillows and blankets on the sofa, but we’re lucky if the sun isn’t shining again by the time we open our storybook.
They’ve inherited my darkness-loving gene, I suppose. Or maybe it comes by birth. I may have been raised in Texas, but I was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and my children were born into Chicago’s urban darkness, where winter means clouds and tall buildings cast deep shadows on even the brightest days.
In addition to hot drinks and storybooks read by the light of a flashlight, we love dinner by candlelight, Christmas books by the twinkling light of the tree, moonlight on snow (oh, how I miss this, though moonlight on ocean waves is lovely, too). In other words, we love the little lights, like fireflies on a summer evening. Like boats at night on Lake Michigan or the St. Johns River. Like warm lamplight on the pages of a book.
We love the light that shows up best against a backdrop of darkness.
When the light of the world came to us, our world was very dark. And His light was small. Cradle-sized. Today, his face may look “like the sun shining in all its brilliance,” but when he was born to us, it was with a delicate, fragile light (Revelation 1:16).
His birth was like the moon.
His return will be like the sun.
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Oh, I totally get this. I lived in southern Florida for a year as a child. As an adult, I could never move anywhere without winter and a true autumn. I need clouds and rain and cold and snow storms and grey days for the same reasons you and your kids do.
It feels good to be understood. I’m afraid my fellow Floridians think I’m crazy.
Loving this advent ‘project’. As a fellow cloud aficionado, I especially enjoyed today’s post!
I’m so glad! Thank you Katie.
Simply beautiful…
Thank you, Sharon. Are you taking any “Advent” photos? You should!
this is my favorite Advent post so far, Christie. (oh how I miss darkness and cold and firelight!) Beautiful, beautiful thoughts.
And I love that you chose this picture, otherwise I may never have seen it again or the story it held for me.
Thank you, Kelli! I love that these photos will have two stories for you now – their original story and their Advent retelling.
I love love love this! Needed to read this, in the midst of what could have been a very dark week, God has given me two tiny bright shining, even cradle sized lights. I thought my faith was strong before, but now I’m truly understanding His grace right now.
Thank you so much, Leslie. Isn’t it amazing that we sometimes need near-darkness to appreciate the wonderful ways He cares for us?
I completely understand. Feel exactly the same. Cozy is the same word I think as well. Never thought I ‘d miss the gray, but the hot tea or hot cocoa, fireplaces, and curling up under blankets are such a good part of life too. Never imagined wishing the sun would NOT come back a while longer, but I do. Amazing how your perspective expands with your horizons. Hope your family has a Merry Christmas!
Thank you, Alanna! Merry Christmas to you and yours. 🙂
So good!
Awesome thoughts!
And it brought back memories of the coziness even I felt in being with my own small siblings, hiding from the rainstorms by using straight chairs and bedspreads to build tents out on the long front porch of our farm house during the rainy late-evening thunderstorms that would pound our central Texas farm. Something about the growing darkness, the heavy rain and the thunder that gave us extra giggly-fun as we built our rickety shelters from the storms.