Imagine this with me. You’re back in high school. You stayed up too late studying the night before and are comfortably tucked under the covers enjoying a dreamless slumber. All of a sudden, the alarm goes off. You groan, untuck one arm from the cocoon of blankets and hit your hand on the nightstand a few times until you can find the snooze button. You quickly fall back asleep and are unaware of the minutes passing. It turns out you subconsciously turned the alarm off and are getting dangerously close to oversleeping, which would cause you to miss your first class - the one in which you have a test.

But you are conscious of none of this - delightfully unaware until your mom comes in and turns on the light - a harsh dose of reality in the form of four 75-watt bulbs hanging from the ceiling. You squeeze your eyes tighter and cringe at the brightness of the light. You silently curse your mother, verbally cry out in pain, and make a mental note regarding the effectiveness of a light switch as a mechanism for torture.

As your cognitive functions return and you remember the test later that morning, your thoughts of retaliation toward your mother turn to feelings of gratefulness for her attention to the hour and your needs for the day. As bright and harsh as the light was, it was shone in love.

Is there a truth that feels harsher than four 75-watt bulbs on a sleepy morning? Is someone from your family (spiritual or physical) trying to shine God’s light in love, but you are rejecting it as a form of torture?

Food for thought this weekend in honor of Food & Family on Fridays.