The Light Within
May 19, 2026
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.”
About Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) was born in Zürich, Switzerland, one of triplet daughters weighing barely two pounds each at birth. Her father did not expect her to survive. Perhaps because of that fragile beginning, she developed early a fierce respect for the value and dignity of every human life.
As a teenager during World War II, she volunteered in refugee camps across war-torn Europe. She walked among the ruins left behind by the Holocaust and later visited the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, where she saw scratches carved into the barrack walls by prisoners facing death. Some had drawn butterflies — symbols of hope and transformation in the middle of unimaginable suffering. Those images stayed with her for the rest of her life.
She eventually attended medical school at the University of Zürich and immigrated to the United States, where she trained as a psychiatrist. At a time when hospitals often treated dying patients as medical failures to be hidden away behind curtains and closed doors, Kübler-Ross insisted that the dying deserved honesty, dignity, compassion, and human presence. She sat beside terminally ill patients when others avoided them. She listened when others rushed. She believed that people approaching death had profound things to teach the living.
In 1969 she published On Death and Dying, introducing what became known as the “five stages of grief.” Though often simplified or misunderstood, her real contribution was far deeper than a framework. She helped restore humanity to the care of the dying. She taught physicians and families alike that suffering people do not primarily need explanations. They need love. Presence. Reverence.
She spent her life walking willingly into dark rooms most people preferred not to enter — and she discovered there a surprising truth: some souls shine brightest precisely there
Historical Context
Kübler-Ross spoke and wrote during the twentieth century’s great medical expansion — a time when modern hospitals became increasingly capable of prolonging life but often less comfortable speaking honestly about death. In many institutions, dying patients were quietly isolated from the rhythms of ordinary life. Families whispered in hallways. Doctors avoided direct conversations. The illusion prevailed that death itself was somehow a professional defeat.
Kübler-Ross challenged that culture directly.
She began conducting seminars in which terminally ill patients spoke openly with medical students about fear, regret, hope, loneliness, and peace. Many physicians initially considered her work radical, even inappropriate. Yet the students who attended her sessions often described them as among the most important experiences of their education.
It was in this lifelong context of witnessing suffering that her stained-glass metaphor emerged. She had seen people during the bright seasons of health and success. But she had also sat beside them when careers ended, bodies weakened, marriages fractured, diagnoses arrived, and death approached. And again and again she observed the same thing: darkness did not create character so much as reveal it.
When external light disappeared, the inner light became visible.
Scripture Cross-Links
John 1:5
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Christ’s light is not overcome by darkness. It shines precisely there.
Matthew 5:14–16 “Ye are the light of the world… Let your light so shine before men.”
The Lord never intended His disciples merely to absorb light. We are meant to carry it.
Moroni 7:16 “For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil.”
There is divine light placed within every soul born into this world.
Doctrine and Covenants 88:67 “And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light.”
Spiritual light is not symbolic only. It changes the whole person.
Alma 26:27 “We have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon… nevertheless, we have been instruments in the hands of God.”
The sons of Mosiah discovered that even persecution could not extinguish the light God had placed within them.
Reflection
One of the great misunderstandings of life is the belief that ease reveals success. It does not. Ease reveals comfort. Prosperity reveals opportunity. Applause reveals popularity. But difficulty reveals character.
Darkness reveals what has actually been built inside a soul. Anyone can appear patient when nothing is required of them. Anyone can appear faithful when prayers are quickly answered. Anyone can appear kind when life is unfolding according to plan. But suffering clarifies. When illness comes, when betrayal arrives, when grief settles into the furniture of a home, when the future collapses unexpectedly — then we discover what is truly living within us.
This is one reason the Lord seems less interested in making our lives easy than in making our souls holy. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely preparation for sunny days. It is preparation for dark nights. Prayer, scripture study, repentance, service, temple worship, sacrament covenants — these are not ornamental practices for already-comfortable people. They are oil for lamps. They are the slow filling of the soul with light before darkness comes. And darkness does come. To every family. To every marriage. To every disciple.
Eventually, the sun sets on youth, health, certainty, or worldly strength. The question then becomes: Is there light within? Not borrowed light. Not reflected light. Not performative righteousness meant for public display. But real inward light — the kind built quietly over years of discipleship, humility, repentance, gratitude, and service. That is the light that hardship cannot extinguish.
Grandfather’s Counsel
My dear grandchildren,
There will be seasons in your lives when the outward lights dim. You will have days when plans fail, when health changes, when people disappoint you, when prayers seem unanswered, when loneliness visits, when grief settles in unexpectedly. Some of those seasons may last longer than you think you can bear.
In those moments, do not measure your life only by what is happening around you. Measure it by what is happening within you.
Anyone can sparkle when the sun is shining. The real work of life is becoming the kind of person who still carries light when the sky grows dark.
That light comes from Christ.
It comes from years of small faithfulness nobody applauds. From scripture, read when you are tired. From prayers offered when heaven feels quiet. From showing up to serve when it would be easier not to. From repenting quickly. From forgiving generously. From loving people even when they are difficult to love.
You are building something eternal inside yourselves.
I promise you this: if you cultivate that inward light now, there will come difficult days when others will draw strength simply from being near you. Your calm will steady them. Your faith will reassure them. Your kindness will warm the rooms you walk into.
And someday, when darkness visits your own life — as it eventually visits every life — you will discover that the Lord has been quietly filling your soul with light all along.
Enough light to endure.
Enough light to comfort.
Enough light to guide others home.
I love you dearly.
— Grandpa