Tiger Eye

 His glory is eternal and golden.

     A vision of golden beams of light, shifting and glowing, like sunbeams shining down between branches as they wave in the wind. Your first instinct is to reach out and touch the gleaming rays, absorb the warmth, to stand in the light and let it rain down on your face, until you, too, glow with the light of the sun. 

     When you think of holiness, one of the first colors that comes to mind is gold, warm and pure. Tiger's eye is quartz with rows of crocidolite trapped inside to create a reflective field of gold within, an effect called chatoyancy. Tiger's eye is found in South Africa, and less common varieties including falcon's eye(blue), hawk's eye(blue and gold), and bull's eye(red) can sometimes be found naturally but most of the time are dyed tiger eye. However, hawk's eyes with both gold and blue are unlikely to be dyed because that would be hard to pull off. Tiger's eye is hard and good for carving; a good way to see the golden sheen roll across the surface of the stone is in rounded shapes. 

     Like a stone with silken light shining back out of it, so too can we be vessels of the light of the Son of God, with the Holy Spirit living in our bodies as a temple. The Lord, Glorious in His majesty, is deserving of our praise and by drawing close to Him we bring more of Him into our lives. Hebrews 4:14-16 says, "Since then we have such a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect was tempted as we were, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." The Lord isn't just Glorious because He says He is (although that would be enough, because He never lies)- He lived life on earth for a time, embodied in Jesus, and never did wrong. Not just the obvious wrongs that you're probably thinking you've never done either, like murder or rape; Jesus never told a white lie to His parents, or thought that someone should just shut up. He was, truly, perfect. This is why we worship Him: even when He lived the same lives as us, walked the same footsteps as us, and faced excruciating death for us, He proved Himself to be more glorious than any human has been or ever could be. Jesus mourned, lost loved ones and friends, and cried and prayed so hard that he sweated drops of blood - but never once did He sin.

     When you gaze into the rolling golden waves captured inside tiger eyes, meditate on the holiness of the exalted one. Accept Him, and let His Holy light, His Spirit, fill every part of you and wipe your record clean.