Recently, I was standing alone in the chapel of a religious community when something unexpected happened.
For most of the morning, the stained glass windows seemed quiet. Beautiful, but almost colorless in the soft light.
Then, for just a minute or two, the sun reached exactly the right place in the sky.
The windows came alive.
Reds.
Blues.
Gold.
Greens.
Light danced across the walls and floor, and the entire chapel seemed to breathe.
For those few moments, I didn’t just see the colors.
I felt them.
Then, as quietly as it had begun, the moment passed.
The colors faded.
The windows returned to the gentle stillness they had held all morning.
As I stood there, another thought came to me.
The artist who designed those windows knew this moment would happen.
They chose every piece of glass.
They positioned every color.
They trusted the path of the sun.
Perhaps they also knew that many people would never stand in that chapel at precisely the right moment to witness what they had created.
Yet they created it anyway.
That feels like faith.
Not creating only what everyone will immediately see.
But trusting that, in God’s time, the light will reveal what has been lovingly prepared.
I wonder if that is true of our lives as well.
The women religious I have been privileged to accompany have spent decades building schools, hospitals, ministries, communities, and relationships. Many will never see the full fruit of what they began.
Yet they continue to love.
To serve.
To build.
To bless.
They trust the Light more than the timing.
Perhaps that is our invitation too.
To create with generosity.
To love with faithfulness.
To plant what we may never harvest.
To build windows that will one day catch the light, even if someone else is standing there when they finally do.
I’ve been wondering…
What am I being called to create today, trusting that God may reveal its fullest beauty in a season I may never see?