I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when God created the sun, but of course there weren’t any flies then or, for that matter, walls. It must have been spectacular, though, as he brought into being this most important light “to rule the day.”

Here in the Florida tropics the sun rules beautifully from an azure sky. As a widow for five winter months, I’ve had a hard time watching daylight fade each day, knowing darkness would follow. Spring’s longer daylight and sunnier skies seem especially encouraging this year.

But I’ve always loved the sun, not just because it brings warmer weather and prettier sunsets but to sit beneath, as in sun-bathe. Although we need vitamin D, too much sun becomes destructive. It causes skin cancer, age spots and wrinkles, and I’m a walking testimony to all of that.

So I’ve tried to analyze what it is about sitting in the sun that captivates me. It has very little to do with getting a tan, although in my younger years it was all about that. We sat with mirrors or tin foil, doubling the power of our sunning time. And if the sun wasn’t shining, we used an indoor sun lamp, burning ourselves to blisters again and again.

Now that I’m older (and supposedly wiser), a suntan isn’t that important, yet the sun still draws me. Why is that? Part of the attraction is its link with happy family beach trips as a child. Then as a young married couple, Nate and I saved for three years before taking a road trip in our tiny Fiat to Florida… and the beach. After that, when we had children, beach trips were the perfect combination of sunshine, sand and water to guarantee family fun for every age.

So this week, here we are again, enjoying Florida’s sun and beach, although with my open facial wounds, I must stay covered. But reading or writing under a sunny sky still holds more appeal than sitting inside, even though friends have said, “Some day you’ll be sorry, ‘cause you’ll look old before your time.”

They were right about the old-before-your-time part, but not about the being-sorry. Growing up on beaches and outdoors instilled a deep appreciation for the wonders of God’s world. It increased my awe-factor toward the Creator, and in a mysterious way, sunshine figures into it. I can even understand how ancient people took it one step too far and worshipped the sun.

Of course all of us can turn appreciation into obsession, and we often do. God gives us a world full of good gifts, and we take them to extremes, transforming good to bad… as in over-doing our sun-time. There is one thing we can’t spoil by overdoing it, however, and that’s appreciating God. We can’t worship him too much, love him too much, bring him too much or depend on him too much. He willingly receives it all, even if it’s anger, disappointment, failure… or sin. He’s for us, which includes the good, the bad and the ugly.

Scripture tells us in heaven there won’t be any dark nights during which we’re looking out the window, longing for the sun to rise. God’s Son himself will light the new heaven and earth, and the sun as we know it won’t be needed. But the Bible doesn’t say there won’t be one. Since God created the sun for the first earth and called it “good”, my guess is he’ll make a new one to shine on the new earth, too. If so, I plan to sit beneath it, increasing my awe-factor toward God just as I’m doing today. I just hope I won’t have to wear the hat.

We are not to be “high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” (1 Timothy 6:17)