Good Morning!
All Christmas till Christmas continues today with Kathy Bailey with her new novella, The Widow's Christmas Miracle but first let's congratulate our November gift card winner......
Anna Taylor Sweringen!
Congrats Anna...take it away Kathy.....
My husband Dave and I are “Lightniks,” a term I coined about five minutes ago. We will drive miles out of our way to gaze at an over-the-top Christmas lights display, and we were doing it well before it became a thing. For years we sought out a home in a nearby town where a family named Hamer filled their yard with elegant lighted vignettes. They had a Nativity cluster, a snowman cluster, a Santa cluster, and, my favorite, a lighted deer on the snowy back hill. A few years into this, there was no display one Christmas. That summer I saw most of the decorations in a yard sale, and shortly after, happened upon Mr. Hamer’s obituary. With his passing, the lights went dark.
Dave and I bought LED lights on sale a few years ago, with the determination of hanging them on our eaves and being done with it. I dragged him outside one warm fall day to Get It Over With, which involved him spotting me on a shaky ladder as I pulled down our old lights and put up the new ones. Which didn’t light. Came down from the ladder, threw the defective lights away, and bought a brand-new strand of LEDs. Repeated the process of Dave spotting me on ladder, and held our breaths as he plugged them in. These lights lit, and continued to light in our own rather modest holiday display. They’re LED, we told each other, so they’ll go on for practically ever. Until we were forced to replace the roof, and the eaves came down along with the lights. But it would have been the same if somebody else bought the house and tore them down, or there was a tornado, or a hurricane, or this world ceased to exist. Which, LED or no LED, it will at some point. Our efforts were worthy, but they were for this life only.
Contrast this with the Light that comes at Advent.
Luke 1:79, “To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.”
John 1:4. “In Him was light, and that light was the light of men.”
John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness knows it not.”
John 1:9. “The true light that enlightens every man was come into the world.”
John 8:12. “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Acts 13:47. “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
2 Cor. 4:6, “For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
1 Pet. 2:9, “That you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
I John 1:7, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
This is the light that never goes out
So true Kathy, thanks for sharing!
