I have a beautiful antique chandelier hanging over the table in my breakfast room. In a true reflection of the chaos that is often my life, I came home this evening to find five of the six bulbs in the fixture burnt out. The irony of course, was that I had just returned from the grocery store where I purchased light bulbs for various other lights in the home that were burnt out, not knowing that these bulbs also needed replacing. In a moment of minor desperation, I climbed onto the step ladder to search high above the refrigerator in the hopes that the Caroline of months past had the foresight to purchase extra bulbs for the chandelier during her last light bulb run.
She had.
Thank you, Past Caroline.
As the boys unloaded the groceries, I replaced the dead bulbs with their new illuminating counterparts. As I twisted each bulb into it's new home, the boys commented with increasing excitement what a difference each light brought to the room. Finally, six lights shone brightly and our home was aglow. My boys were ecstatic. Seriously. You would have thought they had been given a trip to Disney World. My initial reaction was cynicism. How sad is it that these little boys were overjoyed by fresh light bulbs? How desperate have our lives become that this is where they find happiness?
But then I saw the poetry in the moment; there was a lesson there-
We MUST search for the light, and when it is found, whether it is a sudden spark or a massive fire, we need to acknowledge that it is a gift. Our gratitude for such will only promote new light and opportunities to set the world ablaze. We ARE the light of the world.
There is an awful lot of darkness in our world, and it is human nature to obsess over it. It is easy to indulge in the loss we feel when the brokenness is so overwhelming. I have seen beautiful souls turn cold and unmoving by the most tremendous of losses, perhaps never to be rehabilitated to their previous splendor. It is a waste. There is too much beauty in our world to allow ourselves to be blinded in the darkness. We need to retrain our hearts to become giddy like a child over the light opposed to allowing ourselves to be swallowed by the black hole of disappointment and frustration.
There are blessings in every trial we face. We need only to claim them.
Do not allow Evil the opportunity to steal from you the light that exists there. Even the most heinous life events are not lived in vain when we allow ourselves to be bettered by them.
It was once said that the fall of a person is in direct correlation to the height of a monument that can be erected in the aftermath.
We were made to grow.
All life is dependent upon light for growth.
