This is the painting that I put on my parents’ hall mirror the Christmas that I was 18. I loved the way the light seemed to shine through the painting, so each year at Christmas I would put a new painting on the hall mirror as part of our Christmas decorations. When my husband and I moved into our apartment I put a Christmas scene on our front window and later, when we moved into the country and became youth leaders, I enlisted the help of the youth group to decorate all the windows in our little country church. The paintings could be seen from the inside and the outside. They really looked nice when the church was lit up at night. Eventually, the windows of that church needed to be replaced and so I was asked to draw up designs for each window. I chose the familiar themes of the Ten Commandments, Alpha and Omega, The Burning Bush, The Lord’s Supper, and the Open Bible. We took the designs to a stained glass window artist and he had them re- drawn to accommodate the requirements of his craft. The windows were each sponsored by different church families and we had a special church service to dedicate them. Although we no longer attend the church as my husband and I are pastors in another , it thrills me to see the windows each time I pass the church. It is such a pleasure to use my gifts to praise God.
I was thinking of this today, and it occurred to me that we as the people of God are asked to reflect the glory of God in all our being. I think that we can either be mirrors or windows in life. The limitation of a mirror is that mainly the reflection we see is our own. Windows, on the other hand, show what is on the inside and through them we can see the world. We need to be windows to show the love of God that dwells within us to the world. In order to be windows, we need to make sure that what is inside us is clean , healthy, and true.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)and find out what pleases the Lord. ” (Ephesians 5: 8-10 NIV)
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