Heading East

I’ve never seen that color red before. It exists only on the pallet of the Great Artist God when he paints the sunsets. It exploded across the sky like beams of fiery light, a red so intense and deep that no camera or painter could capture or remake it. It drew out a profound purple in the waves of clouds, and it was like the sun was catching all the right edges of the clouds to create a sunset that took over the whole sky. 

I watched it all unfold before me like a show from heaven. The only problem was that I was getting a crick in my neck from being turned around in the back seat of the car. This kind of sunset you can’t watch in the rear view mirror; you’ve gotta turn around and stare at it. 

“Too bad we aren’t driving into that sunset,” my mom exclaimed, and I was hit with a pang of desire. It didn’t feel right to be driving away from it. It felt like leaving something beautiful behind us, kind of like how I feel right now as I write this on an airplane and watch familiar ground disappear as I say goodbye to the United States and my life here for another year in west Africa. The goodbyes never get easier, only my longing for heaven stronger.  

A tear welled up in my eye as I watched the sunset, and I wanted to yell, “Turn around! Go back!” Yet something within me told me that if we kept driving east all through the night, we would drive right into a glorious sunrise. 

And I thought, how kind of the Lord to give such beautiful starts and finishes to each day. He didn’t have to do that, you know. He could have made the sky most gorgeous at high noon. Instead, he gives majesty and meaning to the start and end of every day. A colorful beginning and closure to every dark night. 

As the sun disappears over the horizon and the red and purple melt into black night, I know he does the same for us. He makes every beginning and end meaningful and beautiful. He brings some things to an end so that other things can have new beginnings, and he makes it as creative and colorful and glorious as the sunrises and sunsets. 

So I don’t grieve as I turn back around and face east again, for I know the sunrise is coming. Anyway, that kind of incomparable red can’t bring grief; it only inspires worship. Neither do I grieve leaving my dear friends and family behind me in the United States, for what I have with them makes my heart explode with joy and thanksgiving to the one who paints sunrises and sunsets, the One who is the Creator of good endings and new beginnings. He is so kind to divide my time into meaningful starts and finishes, and to make them both so undeservingly beautiful.