Black and White

The sun has well set, and the pine trees outside my bedroom window stand against the sky like black shadows. And on days like today, with the rain falling in a gracious mist, the clouds are gray and white, turning the whole world into what seems to be a live black and white polaroid.

Its on days like today that I want to listen to Night And Day by The Temptations on repeat and curl up on my little brown couch with my journal and stack of books, and watch the sky outside go from gray to blue to black.

A world, shifting and changing, morphing from black and white to color and then back to black and white again. And I know that when the moon rises in two hours, it will give a white-gray glow to this shadowed planet and paint the lines and angles of the polaroid all the more vividly.

The God we serve is the Master Designer. How He could have thought up that with each setting and rising of the sun and moon, it would always be different is beyond us. Black and white, awash with color, hazy gray, or a simple blue skied evening. To each season is given its own type of setting and rising, yet within each season no setting or rising is the same. To think that He planned this, created it, and orders each cloud, ray, and ice crystal. They all bow to Him and the very air speaks of His glory. He paints His story in the air, and only a thankless fool could fail to notice it.

Today was a warm black and white day. Gray, rainy, and beautiful. God is in the clouds. God is in the rain. Tonight the sky changes from gray to blue, and soon to black. The trees still stand out as giant skeletons, waving and reaching for the deep blue canvas overhead, never quite reaching far enough. But even these striving giants are His creation, and He orders when their needles fall, and numbers how many will. He knows to the centimeter how high each will grow, and how wide their trunks shall be.

He creates the most beautiful polaroid for us to live in. A colored world most days, and then a black and white world on special days. Today is a special day. Today is a black and white day. A vivid day. A blessed day.