This Little Light

We live in a dark and broken world. Very broken. Our pastor talked about this in church this morning and he was able to put words where I could not. His words worked on me throughout the day, but I will not be able to do my thoughts justice. My only hope is to get some reprieve from letting them rumble around in my head over the next week.

Even before the service this morning, the events in Connecticut on Friday have made me more than introspective over the last few days. Perhaps it is because I have a first grader and a kindergardener and I can relate all too closely. I can picture my children huddled in a closet. I can picture their teachers shielding their little bodies. I can picture going to the local church and seeing the other parents, parents of my girls' classmates, learning they will not see their children again. And, I can picture myself as one of those parents.

It has hit me hard.

We are a broken people. We live without God in our schools, without God in our workplace and without God in our government. We are afraid and ashamed to wish people a Merry Christmas or to tell them we will pray for them and their struggles. We see an event like this and point fingers and refuse to admit this is just pure evil and, instead, look for something or someone to blame.

This darkness and brokenness has helped me understand that there is only one light in this world on which we can count. Jesus. Jesus can shine a light in the darkness. A light of hope and peace and love and safety and security. This world cannot give us any of those things. The problem is, that is just where we search for such things.  We look to laws and legislators and law enforcement and money and shelter  and...things. We won't find it there and that hurts and burns us every single time.

The light of Jesus is hard to find. That is because we are the ones that have to carry his light and we are all broken people. We have to be the ones to carry the light of Jesus and let it shine. We need to be the ones to let it shine on our kids and teach them to shine the light in everything they do. We need to shine His light on the broken and the forgotten and downtrodden and the ones wrapped in darkness.

Even in our darkest moments (and there will be many), we need to shine the light of Jesus. My hope is in Jesus and in the light only He can shine on all of the darkness of the world.