‘Stained Glass’ is a composite business for several of my marketable skills. I considered ‘Patchwork’ and ‘Mosaic’, but Stained Glass lends itself to some really neat ideas:

• Odd bits of different colors & shapes get organized together to make a whole picture.  While in progress, onlookers may not know what the final result will be, but the one assembling the colors, both light and dark, has a vision of the picture they’re seeking to create.  It is the same with life – each person will have phases with different interests and different experiences, some planned and some surprises.   Focusing on one color, or one aspect, results in not seeing the whole person and the beauty of the combinations.

• Red glass is made with real gold, so it is the most expensive/valuable of all the colors.  From the Christian perspective, there is no more precious color than red – the color of blood shed by the one & only Son of God to restore our relationship with our Creator.  The restored relationship provides us with meaning, guidance, and support in our lives that disconnected others do not have.  A crutch?  Perhaps – but if your leg’s broken, a crutch is significantly necessary for mobility and health.

• The process of making stained glass involves repeatedly heating to a stress point just shy of destruction, then controlled cooling…and the stained glass ends up stronger than plain glass.  A popular quote is “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It could be a bit overused, but consider how strong people come to be that way…  they get there through testing, whether it’s bodybuilders stressing muscles to the breaking point so that they grow larger and stronger, or people who overcome multiple challenges in their personal or professional lives.  Some train on purpose, setting goals and refusing to allow obstacles to stop them, others are trained by unexpected life events and their responses to them.  Not all glass will successfully become stained glass, not all people will conquer their circumstances – this is a good place to refer back to the crutch/broken leg analogy.

• It is most beautiful, and the picture most visible, when light is shining through it.   Ok – imagine (or remember) being in a room – there’s a stained glass window, but the interior lights are on, so all you see is a collection of colors, rather neutral.  Now, turn the interior lights off – and see the sun (or moon) shining through the window, casting its light through the glass and onto the floor at your feet.  Wow – now you know what the picture is in the glass, and it’s beautiful!  It’s by the outside light shining through the glass and toward you that you see the pattern clearly and the colors vibrantly.  Jesus, the Light of the World, shines through us toward others – touching their darkness, and ofttimes not noticed when they’re not in a dark place…  Similarly, when we’re in a dark place, we can see Him shining through others, and they become beautiful – when we’re not in the dark, we find it easy to ignore the Son that’s shining just beyond the colored window…

• Unlike plain glass, stained glass casts color in a room and on the objects in it, making otherwise dark & perhaps unattractive things full of beauty & colors.   Still imagining (or remembering) the room with the stained glass window…  if the room is dusty, cluttered, barren, it’s not necessarily attractive – it may be boring or stressful.  Once light shines through the glass, suddenly the clutter, barrenness, even dust is sparkling with colors from the rainbow.  Colors are bouncing off of every surface, and the boring becomes beautiful, the stressful becomes stunning.  It is not the glass making this transformation, it’s the light (SonLight) shining through it – refer to Son/Light above.

• In a dark place, sudden light through stained glass is less harsh on the eyes than it would be through plain glass.  Back to the room – cluttered, dusty, or barren…  and suddenly the sun is shining through a very clean crystal clear window – Blinding!  Painful!  Sometimes, Christians come off like that – we’re so careful to not show our stains, to look as though we’ve got it all together, that our attempts to present Christ are harsh, stark, something to be shied away from.  Even Jesus kept Himself opaque – not stained in the slightest, but neither was He glaring in all His eternal glory.  He was gentle, easily approached by the humble and hurting.  As we remember our stains, we can approach others as they should be approached – one beggar, us, showing other beggars, them, where to find healthy food.  (I can’t take credit for the beggar analogy, but I don’t know who the credit belongs to.)  As He employs them, our stains become winsome colors that draw people to us, where they can see Him and be drawn to Him – but only if He is shining through us, and only when we are not obsessing about seeming to be without stains.

• Then there’s the play on the word ‘Stained’…