Navigating another rainy day in Princeton, I was carefully making my way home from campus, picking my way through the wet streets so as to not get a loafer-full of water. Rain often puts a damper on my spirits, making them as gray as the sky above. Just as I began thinking my gray thoughts, I looked down to find my next dry footing and noticed the most beautiful leaf I’ve ever seen (for those of you who know my affinity for the autumn, this is really saying something).
The color of the leaf was something like the juncture of the horizon to the sky during a breathtaking sunset, glowing a fiery orange and red. Completely wet from the rain and lying on the gray sidewalk, the leaf’s color seemed to intensify and shine even more brilliantly. I literally stopped in my tracks. I must have looked so silly, standing in the rain under my umbrella, staring at the ground, but I was totally transfixed! The grayness of the day gave me new eyes to appreciate the brilliant color and beauty before me, and I stood in wonder and gratitude.
This past week has been a sad one for my family. My grandmother went to be with the Lord last Friday, and lately my internal landscape has been a bit gray. I miss her already. But as I prepare to spend the weekend with family celebrating her life and memory, I am grateful for the lesson I learned from that little leaf: that it is under the grayest of skies that we most deeply appreciate the beauty of vibrant color, and the promise of a brighter day. When we face grief and death, we cling to the bright promise of eternal life, and the present comfort of the presence of God himself in the midst of our pain:
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” (2 Corinthians 5:1)
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
(Psalm 23:4)
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