Appearing

Today the sun went away. Actually, it went away about three days ago - and I'm having a hard time dealing with it. Fall is upon us, and with it the long, blue-sky days of summer are now beginning to be replaced with gray over cast, earlier sunsets, and cold air seeping through the windows.

I had a bit of hope brought to me in the mail yesterday in the form of a Christmas catalogue for cute little gifts. Normally I would be annoyed that they are starting to sell Christmas stuff in September, but in this case I felt like it was a gift from heaven. Why, would you ask, was I so grateful to look at fiber optic snowflakes and snowman cookie jars? Because it reminded me that when it gets darker outside that means that Christmas is coming!

Today it was dark outside again, and even though I had the catalogue I still felt very blue. Though I'm looking into getting a light box or something to help with my strong emotional reaction to light, I wanted to bring up what came to my mind while I was reading this morning through the scriptures for this topic.

They are all about the second coming of Christ, how he will appear and how glorious that appearance will be. But there were two scripture in particular that stuck out to me. The first was 2 Timothy 1:10 which says:

10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

With my introduction to this topic I'm sure you can guess why this one stuck out to me. It speaks of light, and how that light will be immortal and everlasting. To never have to wake up and feel your insides come crashing down at how dark it is outside. But it isn't just natural light that this scripture is talking about, it is talking about all light. All knowledge and wisdom and hope and faith, and everything else in the world that is desirable because it is good and uplifting will come with Christ when he appears and we will get to be part of that.

Sometimes people say religion was made up by people to make them feel better with wishful hoping for all their dreams to come true. I say that these people needs to stop and think about when they were last feeling down, and what it was that brought them back up. It usually was a feeling, a loving word from a friend, a song telling them to hang in there, or just the sun coming through the clouds. If they could only realize that all this "wishful hoping" was based on the reality of these small, little up lifts, then maybe they would not be so cynical in our hope that one days we can feel those good, bright feelings all the time.

This is all great to see written down, and looking at my computer screen I feel better already. But then I look away towards the window, and though those feelings of hope are still there, I can feel them rapidly disappearing. This is where 1 Peter 1:7 comes in:

7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

The glorious appearance of Christ in the second coming is true and wonderful, but it is also only something I can look forward to in my mind. This scripture brings hope into the reality of what I'm feeling right now - a trial of my faith. That when I'm feeling low, I can take a small bit of hope that what I'm going through will bring me closer to Christ, and that even though angels are not singing with the clouds parted, I can know that Christ is making his own personal appearance in my heart.