It’s a picture of a bare corner in my dining room.
Until this morning, this corner was home to our Christmas tree.
We put it up last year, the day after Thanksgiving, when my youngest Baby Girl was home for the holiday.
And I have loved it; every single day it has been up.
Every morning, one of the first things I do when I get up is turn on the lights of the tree. I love to have my first cup of coffee close by those soft-colored lights. They cast a glow across the room and reflect on the dark windows; they bring me peace.
But it was time for it to come down.
It’s winter now, grey and cold, but in the inexorable way time marches on. Spring will soon be here.
Then, before I can blink, bright Summer, with blue skies and sweltering afternoons, picnics and lazy days and scent of magnolia.
Then, before Summer has time to sink down into my bones and become a part of me, Autumn.
Then Thanksgiving, and time to put up my tree again.
For now, I’ll put an old chair there under the paintings on the wall.
One of them is a landscape—a riverscape, actually—that our friend CJ painted. It shows the dark waters of the Scuppernong River at the end of the narrow two-lane road that runs past my house. The limbs of cypress trees drip grey moss down toward the water, and the sun sets across the river—golden light suffuses the painting, and it feels like home.
The other painting is one my Youngest Baby Girl did for me. The focal point of it, the part that draws my eyes to it, is a candle glowing in the darkness.
Light, I think.
I am always drawn to the light, a moth to the flame.
Jesus tells us, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8.12b).
In a day or two, maybe, I’ll put one of the chairs from my granddaddy Spencer’s dining room table there in the corner.
And really, I suppose it isn’t bare.
It’s full of light.
It’s home.
Blessings,
Vickie
** used by permission from Vickie’s Facebook page – Photo credits – Vickie Woolard