What Holds the Light in Place

When you step inside the Cathedral of Chartres, the first thing that overwhelms you is the light. Enormous stained glass windows flood the sanctuary with color — some of the oldest and most magnificent in the world, surviving eight centuries. The stone walls seem impossibly thin, as if the whole structure is more glass than stone, more sky than earth.

From inside, it looks like nothing is holding the building up.

But step outside, and you see the truth. Massive flying buttresses arc outward from the walls like stone arms bracing against the wind. These external supports carry the enormous downward thrust of the vaulted ceiling, redirecting the weight so the walls don't need to bear it alone. The buttresses are the reason those walls can be so thin, the reason the windows can be so vast, the reason the light can pour in so freely.

Here is what strikes me: from the inside, you never see what is holding everything together. You only see the light.

Trust in God works the same way. We stand inside our lives and sometimes the walls feel impossibly thin. We wonder what could possibly be holding us up under the weight of grief or uncertainty or fear. But God's sustaining work is like those flying buttresses — real, structural, load-bearing — even when we cannot see it from where we stand.

The light streaming through is not evidence that nothing holds you. It is evidence that something does.