Light and Darkness

If you walked around my neighborhood right now, you would notice that a holiday is coming this week. It’s probably the same way in your neighborhood. We don’t all celebrate Halloween the same way. Some of us have pumpkins, colored leaves and fall messages on our porches and some of us have zombies, witches, cemetery tombstones, and a variety of other scary things in our yard. Halloween is one of those holidays that you’re either really into it, or really not. Even in our own home it’s this way. I have one daughter who loves Halloween and all of the scary stuff that goes with it and one daughter already playing Christmas music! I’m in the middle with some mums, pumpkins and fall leaves on display.

In talking with my daughter who enjoys Halloween and reading and watching scary stories she told me just today...they always happen in the dark. Nothing is as scary in the day time, so those kinds of movies usually are all captured in the night. It’s amazing how something as simple as darkness can be scary.

But if you think about it, you know it’s true. I can remember going to bed as a child and how scary my bedroom would suddenly feel...especially under the bed!

Our scripture this week is Psalm 27. It’s a familiar one that has given me comfort many times over the years:

‘The Lord is my light and my salvation—

    whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life—

    of whom shall I be afraid?’

This week some of us will celebrate scary things, all in good fun. And some of us will take a hard pass and that’s ok too. But take a few moments to think about the Lord as The Light and how that calms your fears.

What are you afraid of right now? We all have fears. It’s human nature. How can you let Jesus turn on the lights in the middle of those fears? Circumstances may not change...but His Presence changes everything.

Trusting that we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living,

Ruth