Emerald Darling, my third child, is five weeks old. She is funny and pitiful and demanding and sweet and interesting and boring. This is the newborn existence. She cries, dirties diapers, eats, spits up, sleeps, opens her eyes, flails her limbs, and burps. But, sometimes she doesn't just open those gorgeous deep blue eyes. Sometimes she sees. I mean, really sees. She looks at the world around her (more like the world within ten inches of her face) and her expression says that she's bewildered, fascinated, and maybe a little scared. She sees faces of the people who love her, toys we show her with hope for some reaction. And she looks until she's overwhelmed and lets those little lashes fall in retreat.
But, there's one aspect of her little world that she sees most of all. One area that she is really drawn to, that can settle her down when she is fussy. One thing that can draw her shaky little head around in all directions just to try and focus on it.
It's light.
She loves lamplight, sunlight, flourescent light, low light and bright light. She is drawn to any type of non-darkness.
And, you know what? You used to be the same way. So did I. All newborns are drawn to light--it must seem so shiny and brilliant to us when we're just learning to process the world around us. And then we get older. And we stop begging for nightlights and start buying heavy curtains to try and block out the sun. If you're like my high maintenance husband (just kidding, Chad), you have a collection of sleep masks to keep out every last particle of light when you are trying to rest.
We kind of grow to love darkness. And, not just physically.
Spiritually, we see the benefit of darkness when we first tell a little lie to our parents. We don't want to shed light on the fact that we're doing wrong. Later we get a little more desperate to keep certain aspects of our life in the dark. Like when we develop sinful habits that plague us. We would be mortified if anyone knew what we said about a friend during a gossip session. We would be humiliated if someone found out what we looked at on the computer last night. So, we hide things. We maintain shadowy corners in our soul where we can cover up sins. To bring them to light would be horrific! People would know we're not perfect! NOT EVEN CLOSE!
In the Bible, John tells us, "This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light. In Him there is NO DARKNESS AT ALL." So, this is our hope. If we know God, if we trust Him and believe He can save us from our sinful nature, we have access to the Light of the World. I'm talking about THE light that can pierce the deepest, darkest most dank and dreadful parts of our heart. He can do it.
We're good hiders. But, He's an even better finder. He knows where our dark spots are. Only He can shed light there and then keep it nice and clean and shiny and brilliant.
So, let my five week old little dear remind us to love the Light. After all, we're really no less pitiful than a newborn. We are weak, but He is strong. Let's admit our weakness and look for the Light with our shaky little hearts.
Live in the Light!
