Stained Glass Windows

I've never been particularly impressed with stained glass windows on the whole. I mean, every once in a while you see one that is truly breathtaking, but usually it's more of a "hm, okay" response.

So, I had this dream the other night that I was at a church and they put me in charge of designing a stained glass window for the building. Odd. It was an old church and not particularly beautiful. Additionally, there weren't any windows in the chapel, so they asked me to design one for a large glass wall in the foyer.

I thought it was a very odd request.

I began contemplating different floral or pastoral scenes, white lillies, green hills, blue skies. I kept remembering all the truly unimpressive stained glass windows I'd seen in my life, full of oranges and reds, windows I'd really not cared for at all. What is it with people and putting orange and red in stained glass. Yuck!

Then I began to consider the setting. Church. It needed to be something soothing, comforting and uplifting, inspiring of hope.

All at once it hit me like a stroke of inspiration: The Resurrection!

What greater message of hope could be portrayed? Because of the resurrection, we will all have perfect bodies one day. All of us, regardless of good or bad, will have a perfect immortal body at some point.

Nice. I could go for a perfect body.

From there, the promises continue accordingly. All of our worldly sorrows will be made up to us in the resurrection. ALL of them. No sacrifice we made, or goodly effort we applied ourselves to, or pain we suffered in a just cause will go unrewarded. No loss will be forgotten.

Now, that is a something to consider. Talk about hope... I will receive my little girls back to me, to raise in a world of joy! That alone is enough to make me euphoric in hope for that joy! And I'll get to do it with a perfect body. Nice.

Sorrows. We all have them, and I've certainly had my fair share. I'm not sure how they'll be "made up to us", but I'm confident that if my sorrows are turned into joy, I'm going to be one very happy person.

As I thought about the resurrection and the ultimate message of joy it contained, I realized that this was the image that had to be portrayed in the window. Lots of white, eventually feathering out to the royal colors of blues and purples, edged in the loveliest green... maybe that pastoral setting I'd considered before.

The Savior would be at the center, in a very bright white resurrected state and, perhaps, over the green hills in the background, beyond the light all around him, you could see other people being resurrected, amazed at their beautiful bodies and filled with joy at the restoration of their losses, the comfort of their griefs, the reward of their kindly sacrifices.

Now, I understand that there have been some bad people in the world... really, truly, horribly bad individuals, but when it comes to the resurrection, I am convinced that it will be, overwhelmingly, a day of joy. Perhaps, for those few who are truly, truly horrible, the murderers and people who love to torture, the Judas Iscariots of life, those who do it with a full knowledge and not because they have never known love, perhaps for them it will be a sad day.

On the other hand, even if it takes a thousand more years to gain the understanding of hope, I'm convinced it will be a glorious and joyful day. It's not just about heaven and hell, it's about degrees of heaven and for most, by far, it will be some sort of degree of Heaven.

Heaven! I'm certain it will be amazing.

I never actually built the window, but when I woke up, I knew what it would be and the hope it would need to portray... if anyone ever asked me.

It was an interesting dream.