Shed Some Light

It all began over Thanksgiving weekend, when my uncle was sitting in our dining room and saw a rat cross the neighbor's porch across the street. "It was this long!" he emphasized as he spread his two index fingers apart to demonstrate that this was no little house mouse. It was a rat. 

Not too long after that, I had a strange encounter involving an empty toothpaste tube that I threw away in the trash can in my bathroom. The next morning when I pulled back the shower curtain to hop in the shower, there it was. My empty toothpaste tube in the bottom of the shower. 

"Kaysi, did you put my toothpaste in the shower?"

She gave me a strange look and a blunt "no", as if to say "why in the world would you even ask me that?" But to me, it was a legitimate question. 

"That's just like a rat," my dad said, "to dig toothpaste out of the trash and drag it off somewhere." In my mind I am thinking about just how big a rat would have to be to scale the slippery wall of the tub and get into the shower. A mouse couldn't do it. But a big rat could. 

That brings us to Tuesday night. Technically Wednesday morning at 3:30 am. I was sleeping in my mom's room with her because the rest of that family was out of town, and I heard a small scratching sound that woke me from a deep sleep. It didn't even phase me until I heard it again. Then, out of curiosity and a hint of fear, I waited a long tedious silence before my fear was confirmed. I heard it yet again. I turned my head so that I could hear better out of both ears, and that's when mom whispered, "You hear it too?" 

"Yeah, what is it?" I asked. 

"I don't know. Do you think it's inside or outside?" 

At that exact moment I heard the little scratching sound again. Like little nails digging ever so softly. Just a scratch or two, but it was there. And it was definitely in the room. 

As Mom turned to the nightstand to get a flashlight, I saw something. It was on the ceiling, making its way towards us until it came to the wall and began to descend towards the head of the bed. In a flash of sheer panic, I threw back the covers and started crawling towards the end of the bed. 

"There it is!" I am yelling at my mom and pointing at the ceiling. "And it's big!" 

And big it was. I really thought there was a raccoon in the house. 

As I scrambled to get out of the bed, Mom just started laughing. My heart was beating 200 beats per minute when she said, "Ashli, that's a balloon!" 

I guess one's judgment is slightly impaired when you wake out of a dead sleep at 3:30 am, plus not having my glasses might have compounded the situation. It was true. Instead of a rabid raccoon, it was just a floating balloon, which had caught the draft and was circulating around the room, making little crinkly noises each time it hit the ceiling or the walls. 

Things aren't as they seem in the dark. Or when you are just waking up. Or without your corrective lenses. I think there's a lesson in that. 

I was talking with a friend the other day who is a high school junior, and she is trying to make big decisions about her future. She's not trying to decide which shoes to wear to school or who to go with to the next dance. She lives in west Africa and has to make decisions about whether or not to finish high school in Africa or move to America and do her senior year there. She has to think about other factors, too, like leaving her family, what's best for her own education, and how she can best grow spiritually. She's beginning to think about college, too, which impacts her decisions now. It's not easy stuff, but she explained to me how she has made her next-step decision based on God's guidance and her seeking after him. She beamed as she talked about it because she knew what to do, and it was because God had led her. It's pretty cool really, how things become clear when you look at them in the light. 

When you are in the dark, shadows are bigger. The unknown is scarier. It's just plain hard to see and think. It's even harder to move or make decisions. Balloons can turn quickly into raccoons. 

That's why we need light, the light found in Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. 

That's why we need to wake up. Wake up from our sleeping in selfishness, in doubt, and in conforming to the pattern of this world. 

That's why we need our corrective lenses, the lense of the Word of God to give us truth and proper persepective in a world where our culture has scewed our reasoning. The truth of the Biblr makes things clear that were blurry and brings outline and detail to what we couldn't understand before. 

We don't have to make decisions in the dark. We have been liberated from the fear, guilt, uncertainty, and lack of clarity that characterizes the darkness. Light stepped down into darkness in the form of a baby in a manager. Light broke through the darkness as a gentle shepherd went from village to village teaching and healing. And Light defeated darkness on a brutal, beautiful cross and in an empty tomb. We have been brought forth into light by Light. 

We still haven't solved the mystery of the transporting toothpaste, but I learned what I needed to learn. Don't let the darkness turn your birthday balloons into giant raccoons. Step out of the darkness and into the light, where things are brighter and clearer. Wake up from sleeping and rise in the light of Christ  shining. Make every decision through the lense of the Word of God, which gives clarity and proper perspective. 

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6)