Light always wins
I'm deviating from my original intentions, I know. But this photograph. I remember the night, or morning really. It was in September a few years back. The nights had started to cool creating these thick, silencing fogs that stuck against the hills of Seattle.
I was heading out to pick up a friend from the airport. As I walked up the hill towards my car, I glanced left and saw this moment. The night was black and the fog was asleep on the city. Yet, these street lights pierced the black. It was captivating. The light filtering through the fog created these areas that glowed and sparkled. I remember the calm of it all.
What I loved about the light that night was that it was piercing yet at the same time it was soft.
It's reach was far but in areas subtle. The light we read of in the verses below is much like this. Piercing yet full of love.
When life feels dark or when the darkness itself presses in, I have to remind myself that light trumps darkness every time. And there is "plenty of light to live in."
Here is the reading for the eleventh day of Advent:
Isaiah 9:2
"The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light.
For those who lived in a land of deep shadows—
light! sunbursts of light!"
John 1:4-9
"What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light."
John 3:19
“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God."
John 8:12
"Jesus once again addressed them: 'I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.'"
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