Yesterday’s sunrise was pink and blue.

The day before it was orange and yellow.

I take so many pictures of the sunrise. I’ll be at the pool and one the ladies swimming will say, “Ooh! Sally! Get your camera!” I’ll grab my phone and step out the door into the cold for yet another sunrise photo.

It never grows old.

Here’s one of my favorites, looking in a slightly different direction:

I’m reading excerpts of Lamentations for Holy Week. Feeling the sadness of the Jewish people as they lament the destruction of Jerusalem sets the tone for the sadness Christians should feel as we approach Good Friday. I love the way C. S. Lewis,  in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, described Aslan walking to the Stone Table

…one of the girls walked on each side of the Lion. But how slowly he walked! And his great, royal head drooped so that his nose nearly touched the grass. Presently he stumbled and gave a low moan.

“Aslan! Dear Aslan!” said Lucy, “what is wrong? Can’t you tell us?”

“Are you ill, dear Aslan?” asked Susan.

“No,” said Aslan. “I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that.”

And the girls did what they would never have dared to do without his permission but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw him — buried their cold hands in the beautiful sea of fur, and stroked it and, so doing, walked with him.

That part of the story is almost unbearable to me. Because even if I picture burying my cold hands in his mane, I know that soon the lion will be gone and my hands will be colder than before. It’s an awful feeling.

But Lamentations 3 holds one of my favorite passages — and arriving at it is like arriving at Easter morning.

²¹ But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:
²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Every sunrise holds that promise for me. His mercies are new every morning. In Narnia —

There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane… stood Aslan himself.

The Narnian lampposts that line the driveways and parking lots at the pool extinguish themselves one by one every morning and I am left with a glorious sun. Even on the grayest days, I know it’s there — and it brings me hope.