It’s Friday, it’s Lent, and we live in Wisconsin. So, naturally, we headed out this evening for a delicious church basement fish fry in Halder.

Halder might as well be Stankowski-ville and I just love it.

Baked fish, crinkle cut fries, homemade desserts, and enough left over for lunch tomorrow… what’s not to love?

The best part, though, was that on the way there, at nearly 6 pm, Seth pointed out that it was still light out. Still! At 6 pm!

And just like that:

“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” –Matthew 4:16

Too literal? Perhaps, but man, does daylight ever make a difference this time of year.

It’s still cold (like real cold) and there’s lots of snow left on the ground, but to see the sun when I get up in the morning and when I leave work in the evening? Absolutely glorious!

“Maybe one of the great unknown–unrecognized–truths of life is that light always dawns, eventually; that there is no such thing as a perpetual darkness of the soul. I know that in my own case the darkness only existed because I refused the light. I simply did not want the light. I had been in the cocoon of darkness for so long I thought that it was light.

“Maybe life is simply a going from light to light, from darkness to darkness till the last Great Darkness signals the coming of the First Great Light. That would explain why we are in a constant state of ‘disillusionment.’ I have come to understand that it is not protesting what we do not like that counts. It is choosing what we do which, ultimately, changes things.” –Joan Chittister

Light and dark make such powerful metaphors, don’t they? Maybe it’s because light and dark can be so powerful, even literally.

The last two lines though.

I have come to understand that it is not protesting what we do not like that counts. It is choosing what we do which, ultimately, changes things.

Wow.

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.

Shed light in a dark place and the powerful hold it has vanishes.

If we want to bloom, we must stretch toward the sun.

Stretching toward the sun, sharing the light I have when I have it, and promoting the things that I love– those are choices. Positive choices. Choices that lead to positive change. I will continue to look forward to the light. Even in the darkest days of winter.

And just to prove it, I’ll buy a really cute pair of wedge sandals on Zulily in the middle of January.

Yessss, yessss. That’s why I bought those shoes.