In these darkest days of the year, the very first days of Advent, and the last of a long year, I think that, wrapping a hand round my morning mug of warm, witnessing the sun pull itself out of the snow-blanketed fields and surely rise:
You can’t make light.
Sure, there’s the dance of the twinkle lights, and you can sleuth out the dud bulb on the Christmas Tree and twist in some brilliance, but this is the real epiphany:
All real light really isn’t from here — all real light comes from beyond this world.
All real light really isn’t from here — all real light comes from beyond this world.
Real light is not mined from somewhere in the depths of this rock spinning in a dark cosmos, nor real light grown in trees on some remote mountain slope.
All light comes from beyond this world and we will have to wait for the light to come.
All light always involves waiting…
At the beginning of our Advent wait, savouring the milky froth heaped on my steeped coffee beans, I can feel the light that’s planking across the old pine floors and my feet.
All the light we see out the window’s been travelling 300,000 km a second, for the last 480 seconds — more than 8 whole minutes since this light left the sun — before it’s finally reached my eye, warmed by feet, twice as long as it takes to steep the cup of coffee in my hand.
All light has always made a journey. And every moment of our existence, since our first breath, we’ve always waited for the light to come.
The light is coming, and light’s literally the very fastest thing in the universe.
We can dare to trust: The light is coming, and light’s literally the very fastest thing in the universe. Nothing has ever travelled as fast as light, and nothing has ever come for you as fast as light. More than 186,000 miles per second — just to get to you, warm you, envelope you, revive you!
Just right before Christmas, in the last days of Advent — we’re slated, according to our calendar squares, to be sitting in an OR waiting room for 6 impossible hours while our littlest girl lies on an operating table while they explore the delicate intricacies of her miraculous heart.
Is the Light really coming?
Is the Light really coming when we’re all living with broken hearts and busted relationships, when time’s ticking loud and parts of our hearts have soundlessly detonated, when lament is the dialect of every honest Advent?
Is there actually more light here than we can ever even see?
Most visible light isn’t most of the light. Nearly all of the light is the light you can’t see. Even when you can’t see the Light, there’s infinite more light right here.
They say that:
The human eye can only observe 0.0035 percent of electromagnetic spectrum. “The light we can see, made up of the individual colors of the rainbow, represents only a very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Other types of light include radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays — all are imperceptible to human eyes.”
Most visible light isn’t most of the light.
Nearly all of the light is the light you can’t see.
And in the darkest days of the year, and the first days of Advent, we light a candle and know:
Even when you can’t see the Light, there’s infinite more light right here.
There is One coming who said “Let there be Light,” and He’s been been coming for us since the very beginning, and when He squalled in the dark of a manger stall, it happened: “those who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2).
“There is far more light around you than you can imagine, & the light keeps coming for you far faster than you ever imagined.”
And still, even now, our busted hearts reverberate with the reality of His beckoning words, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12) because “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).
I rock our baby girl with a broken heart, real close, and count here and now, this present moment, a gift.
This is our holy work of Advent: Stay awake and keep watch and know the reality is that there is far more light around us that any eye can see.
There is more light around you than you can imagine, and the light keeps coming for you far faster than you ever imagined.
And she’s leans forward and unexpectedly kisses the tip of my nose and I can feel her smile.
Radiant.
Brilliant.
Ann Voskamp