From Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson (written in the first person by an elderly dying minister to his young son):

"The light in the room was beautiful this morning, as it often is. It's a plain old church and it could use a coat of paint. But in the dark times I used to walk over before sunrise just to sit there and watch the light come into that room. I don't know how beautiful it might seem to anyone else. I felt much at peace those mornings, praying over very dreadful things sometimes--the Depression, the wars. That was a lot of misery for people around here, decades of it. But prayer brings peace, as I trust you know.

"In those days, as I have said, I might spend most of a night reading. Then, if I woke up still in my armchair, and if the clock said four or five, I'd think how pleasant it was to walk through the streets in the dark and let myself into the church and watch dawn come in the sanctuary. I loved the sound of the latch lifting. The building has settled into itself so that when you walk down the aisle, you can hear it yielding to the burden of your weight. It's a pleasanter sound than an echo would be, an obliging, accommodating sound. You have to be there alone to hear it. Maybe it can't feel the weight of a child. But if it is still standing when you read this, and if you are not half a world away, sometime you might go there alone, just to see what I mean." (Gilead, p. 70)

I guess it's a minister's blessing to be able to know the loveliness of time spent alone in a sanctuary with only the light of the sun through the stained-glass windows by which to see. It is both beautiful and peaceful. Most people are only in the sanctuary or chapel when it is filled with others. A gift you could give yourself would be to stop in at church sometime during the day--or even before an evening activity--and spend your daily devotion time in the sanctuary, in the quiet, in the presence of God.

Grace and peace,
Jess