More than a hundred years ago, Eliza Hewitt, a young schoolteacher, took an afternoon stroll in a Philadelphia park, her eyes bright with the glow of the moment. It was spring, and she was feeling the warmth of the sun for the first time in months. Eliza had been bed-ridden all winter because a hostile student had struck her with his heavy slate, injuring her spine. This first walk in the sunshine was more than an outing; it inspired in Eliza a new way of seeing the glories of God. “Blessed sunshine,”1 she called it.
Eliza’s poem “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today” is a favorite hymn of congregations. Her words captured the hope, opportunity, and life that lit up around her. They teach us that how we see the blessings of heaven and how we measure God’s goodness make all the difference. Life is not all bitterness and sorrow. It is also rich and rewarding, if we choose to see it that way. God created this place, this time, this sunshine to fill our souls.
It has been said, “Negativism is the weather of our time.”2 But is it really? What of the brilliant summer sun reflecting off the water? What of the snow that shimmers and the trees that beckon the light? What of the sun-kissed face of a grandchild or the letter from a friend? Have you noticed how hard it is to be unhappy, harsh, or irritated when light is all around you, when kindness and mercy are passed from one to another? If we look we can see the Lord’s rays pouring down from the sky. It’s what we feel when we are loved, and even more so when we love one another, when our families come to visit, when we go fishing with a son at daybreak, or when we take long walks, do our duty, finish something hard, share memories, smile at a stranger, view God’s creations from a peak or a valley, or shine light on others and away from ourselves.
The sun is always beaming somewhere on this earth. While its illumination may be elusive—especially when the heavy clouds of daily living hide its brilliance—know this: darkness is ever the herald of the dawn. When there is sunshine in our souls, we too can revel in our connections to the divine and recognize the “joys ‘laid up’ above.”3 It was determined in the heavens that God’s children “need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light,”4 and that light is everlasting.
Program #3904
- “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today,” Hymns, no. 227.
- Donald Hall, introduction to Whittier, edited by Richard Wilbur (1960), 18.
- “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today.”
- Revelation 22:5.