Lights Out: What do you do when a strand of lights goes out?

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

—Ephesians 2:14

As soon as I entered the traffic circle, my eyes were drawn to a band of darkness that wrapped around the Chaptico Christmas tree, separating two sections of light. I was dismayed, because the mid-section of darkness prevented it from being the beautiful tree I knew it could be. I wondered why someone hadn’t fixed it.

Rise and Shine

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Isaiah 60:1 (NRSV)

A flash of color on my stone path caught my eye. I stooped to get a closer view. A pansy, dressed in the color of kings, met me face to face. I gasped.

“How did you get here?” I asked, but all the while I knew.

In the fall, the wind picked up a seed from my plants on the deck and tossed it down below to the crack in the path. The seed found a bed in the dark earth and slept there all winter.

Spring came and switched on the light, like my mother used to do to wake me for school.

“Rise and shine!” she would say, as she threw back my cover. And I would long to switch off that light, cover my head and go back to sleep.

When we live in sin, we are like that. We want to stay in the dark and away from the light that exposes our sin. But when we admit our failing and allow God’s Light to penetrate our heart of stone (see Ezekiel 36:26), He will forgive our sin (see 1 John 1:9) and give us new life, like the sun gives to the pansy seed.

He will fill our heart with joy, and we will spring forth to bring joy to those along our path.

Lord, let the light of Your face shine on us (Psalm 4:6b).

Make the Switch

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

—2 Corinthians 5:17

It was 1:35—for years. The hands of that old clock were stuck. It was time for a change. And Easter was the perfect season to make the switch.

I removed the clock from my living room wall and replaced it with a beautiful hand-crafted cross. I received the cross in exchange for a donation to Teen Challenge, a program which “provides successful recovery for women, children, young men and families with destructive, abusive and addictive lifestyles through mentoring, education, training and spiritual direction.”

The wood for these crosses is handpicked from old, discarded horse fencing from the Teen Challenge Northern Virginia farm. Cut and stained by the students, the crosses are a reflection of what happens in their lives. They come into the program broken, but as a result of Christ’s work in their lives, they become new.

It Is Enough

And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

—Genesis 45:28

It is enough, I read the words of Jacob (also called Israel). 

Enough. I let the word seep into my soul. Enough. Jacob’s final wish before he died…his only wish…his only prayer was to see his son alive who he had believed was dead.

I have read the story many times, but never before had it impacted me as much as when I read it earlier this week. When I read how Joseph’s jealous brothers sold him into slavery and then deceived their father into thinking he had been killed by a vicious animal (Genesis 37:12-33), I was outraged. When I read the account of Jacob’s grief (Genesis 37:34-35), my mother’s heart ached for him. I tried to imagine how he must have felt, but I could only shudder at the thought of losing one of my own.

The Sign

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

—John 10:9 

I picked up the wooden sign I received as a gift. The desk was not the right spot for it.

Over the living room doorway would be perfect!

I rummaged through my tool box for two sturdy nails, all the while rethinking my decision. What if the sign falls while someone is walking underneath it? What if one of my precious grandbabies is crawling through? I shuddered to think of the unthinkable.

Dust Free, Debt Free

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.—1 John 1:9

Really?  I just dusted two days ago!  And there it was—sunbeams penetrating the blinds bringing it to light—a trail of dust once again making its home on my picture table.

I abhor dusting—all that moving items to dust beneath and then dusting the items themselves.  I guess that’s why it’s always at the bottom of my list.  But I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer and set out to conquer the thick coating on my furniture. What a chore it was dusting all those picture frames.  And now to have the dust return in two short days makes my work seem in vain. 

Smile! It's free!

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart; good news makes for good health.

Proverbs 15:30 

I was ready to pitch it in the trash along with all the other junk mail. But just as I picked it up, the words from the advertisement billowed, “Smile!  It’s free!”

Immediately I recalled an incident from earlier in the week. My student had pointed to my employee badge, “I like that picture.”

“This?”

“Yeah, you’re smiling.  You should do that more often.”

Ouch! Was it true that I rarely wore a smile? What keeps me from smiling?

A Christmas Devotion: Give an Angel a Job--Live Forever

By Desiree Glass

This time of year I’m sure you’re caught up in a multitude of maddening activities—everything from hosting Christmas parties to shopping for oodles of gifts.  I know, because so am I.

And when you’re traipsing through the mall on a quest to find that perfect gift, do you ever hear the piped in Christmas music?  I’m sure you do, because so do I.

Do you hear what I hear?  The First Noel?  Hark the Herald Angels Sing?

Yeah, you hear it.  But what did the angel say?  What did the herald angels sing?