Increase

I have been writing these posts backwards. Lighting the candle and then learning what I would for that week and then sharing with you. Sunday was the candle of Joy. I will be honest and admit that I didn't get around to lighting that candle. It was only my daughter and I home in the morning before church and by the time we got home, celebrated my grandson's birthday and cleaned up the kitchen, I was really too tired. That's it, I didn't have time to light a candle other than three little birthday candles. 

Not that I wasn't thinking about it. All day long I was thinking about so many things. Getting ready for church I was listening to For King and Country's new Christmas album which I love by the way and they had a reading from Isaiah 9, The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. 

What a word picture. Walking in darkness and then a great light. Darkness and light. Glaring, eye numbing brightness. If you've been sitting in darkness for any length of time, light can be disturbing and painful. But it doesn't take long to get adjusted and begin taking in all that you've missed. I never truly appreciated light until I moved to the Caribbean. Our little house on the mountain never seemed to have electricity when we needed it. Daytime? Electricity was on. But for some reason once the sun set and the darkness rolled in, the electricity was a firm no. We would pull out our old Coleman lantern and play games at the kitchen table to its dim light. Everyone had to hang out in the same room, because we only had one light. We got accustomed to it and began going to bed with the sun and waking by it as well. We adjusted to the darkness. 

But the thing is, my heart knew better. I had lived with 24 hours of electricity at my disposal. Lights within my reach whenever I wanted to be illuminated. That's the thing with light and darkness, joy and sadness. You know better. You know what the light is like and you long for it. You know how joyfulness feels and you yearn for it. For this moment I can put up with the darkness, with the sadness, but I have hope that the light will come, the joy will come. It won't always be this way, this stumbling around in the dark. Time will pass and the joy will return, the light will come. 

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