“There is a candle in every soul
Some brightly burning, some dark and cold
There is a Spirit who brings fire
Ignites a candle and makes His home
Carry your candle, run to the darkness
Seek out the hopeless, confused and torn
Hold out your candle for all to see it
Take your candle, and go light your world”
-Go Light Your World by Chris Rice
In this life, we will experience darkness. There is evil and hate and wickedness that at times cannot be ignored. Sometimes it can be hidden, and other times in plain sight.
God challenges us as lights not to run to the other lights, but instead run to the darkness with our own lights.
At times, this can be uncomfortable, scary, or downright terrifying. Bringing your light into the darkness truly tests your faith. In those “run to the darkness” moments we are challenged to put complete trust in our Heavenly Father. Do we believe he will help us? Will he protect us? Will he light our candle again if ours is blown out?
I’ve had several “run to the darkness” moments. Was I scared? Absolutely! But did God protect, guide, and see me through it? A thousand times yes!
For example, being in the bereaved parent’s club. It's a club you never wanted to be a part of, yet here you are. There is so much pain, sorrow, and darkness that can consume you when you lose a child to a terminal illness. You learn just how much strength God can give you, how much hope you can bring to other people in sharing your stories, and how many tiny miracles God performed each step of the way.
Being a foster parent also exposes you to the darkness of the world, the lack of protections for children, and all the bandaids and duct tape that keeps broken systems limping day after day.
So what do we do? We run to the darkness anyways, because we are called to. We cannot choose to look the other way anymore. We cannot dust those thoughts, injustices, and wickedness under the rug anymore.
But at some point (and I can promise this) your candle will be blown out. Whether it be by the wind, evil, or lack of fuel to keep it burning.
We cannot easily light our own candles. We need other people to help us light them, and relight them again and again and again.
We need God, who first lit our candle. This means reading our Bible, attending church, going to a weekly small group, and serving others in some way. These are all fire starters, people lighting each other’s candles.
Writer and motivational speaker Brene Brown shared a wonderful story (here) about candles and how we need to protect our flame bestowed to us. She states we need to find others who will help us, honor our light, make room for our light, and protect our light. We need to protect ourselves from “candle blower outers”.
We need to surround ourselves, especially in the seasons of darkness, with people who can help us protect our light and help us relight our candles as often as needed.
We must trust that if we bring our candle into the darkness and its blown out, that God himself or through his people will help us light it again and again and again.
For my lady friends out there- how many of you know when is the best time to burn a candle?
In the night right?! When it’s dark outside candles glow more and seem to burn brighter in the darkness. They are more magnificent and colorful when they are in the dark.
The same is true of us- the light always burns brighter in the darkness.
