Disclaimer: Is my name C.S. Lewis? I thought not.
Another disclaimer: The phrase "after night comes day" was borrowed from Amazing Grace's Barbara Spooner.
After night comes day. After the darkness, there is light. After the sorrow, joy abounds. But I'd not fully understood that.
Not until that morning.
The pre-dawn in which my eyes burned from crying every tear offered. The last twinkling of stars during which I tried to keep warm. The morning after he died.
Never had I cried so much before. Never had I so longed that something could be different. Never before had I wished so hard to feel a breath on my hand. Never had I been so moved by death's sting.
As I watched the sunlight begin to promise hope for the new day, I had to wonder why. Why he gave himself up to save another. Why he loved him enough to do it. Why, in restoring him to us, he had to take his place. Why he couldn't have found another way. Why he allowed them to bind him. Why he quietly took the death thrust upon him.
I spun around, certain that something further had happened to my beloved departed. His body was not there, not where I'd left it just a short moment before. No, he was not where I left him, but triumphant in the gleaming sunrise. No words could express my utter joy in seeing him again, alive. The breath I'd so longed for during the night finally came and my hand felt the warmth of his wonderful face. Alive.
With the sun's rising, he had arisen. With the promise of a new day, he granted hope. With the welcoming rays, he restored joy. With the wonder of new things ahead, he took me into the thrill of continuing adventure.
The joy and awe I gained that morning would not have been so full had not I'd experienced the darkness of the night before. Victory is made sweeter by the toil it took to achieve it. Life is more wondrous after contrasted with the bitterness of death.
Indeed, so it is that after night comes day. But brighter is the day after the darkest hour that comes before dawn.
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