It was one of those gray, overcast and dreary days, the sort when one’s spirits are low and one’s motivation even lower. I had been kicking around outside my grandmother’s house all afternoon trying to play, but nothing interested me. I was, in a word, in a royal funk.

And that’s when God showed up. Suddenly, there appeared in the sky a break in the previously unbreakable clouds, and a shaft of the purest sunlight poured through. It started, it seemed, in heaven itself and came all the way to the earth. Everything around it was bathed in light and I was filled with awe. It looked just like all the holy pictures I had ever seen, and here I was, seeing it for myself. My funk lifted and everything was fresh and new. Suddenly, I felt alive again.

Now that I have gotten older, I realize that what I saw that day was a natural phenomenon known as crepuscular rays, sunlight that appears through clouds near the end of the day. But even so, armed as I am with the scientific definition, I still feel a lifting of my spirits when I catch sight of one at the close of an otherwise gray day. It isn’t God Himself, but I do believe it is heaven sent.

Another interesting fact about crepuscular rays — they are most noticeable when the contrast between light and darkness is greatest. In other words, it’s when things look their worst that we are about to see the best.

Hope is like that. In fact, we often refer to something good happening in the midst of something bad as a “ray of hope.” It is the thing we cling to when all else seems lost.

A few years back, I was preparing for a doctor’s appointment that I already knew wouldn’t be good; it wasn’t a matter of whether or not it was cancer, but instead what stage it was. As sometimes happens at times like that, I was focusing on something else, something less dire, more distracting — my library books. I had to return them right then, I insisted, so they wouldn’t be overdue. And so I did.

As I came out of the library, I happened to notice the little sign outside the Methodist church across the street. Something — or someone — insisted I read it, so I did. It said, “Trust an unknown future to an all-knowing God.” In that instant, the clouds didn’t dissipate entirely, but God’s crepuscular ray came through, giving me the hope I needed. No matter what else was going to happen in the interim, I knew that in the end, it would be alright.

God Himself assured Julian of Norwich that “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” No matter how it seems now, remember — God always has the final word, and that word is hope.