Sunday, April 27, 2014

Light

I am probably one of the worst bloggers out there, and of my three blogs, this one is probably the least focused of them. Today, I'm posting for the first time in almost six months, I'm going to say something at least six of my seven followers won't particularly expect or necessarily care about here, but I'm hopefully going to get some visitors who do, and I may be wrong about the followers.

Anyway, today I am going back to something I had a bit of when I started this blog, which is to try and be the kind of grandmother my grandmother was for me. (She was still alive then, and I myself had just become a grandmother. Now I'll soon be a grandmother of four!)

This particular post is only loosely connected to that. I am studying a book called Nurture at church. The chapter of Nurture I finished reading today encourages us to leave a strong spiritual legacy to our own children, which will of course be difficult for me, since I did not raise children. I am thankful though that Don has done that for Holly and Josh, and I am going to publicly thank Holly right here for sending him a letter a few weeks ago acknowledging her gratitude for many of the things Don did as a Dad. It wasn't easy for Don, being the non-custodial parent and living so far away from them, so it's good to know what he did was appreciated by Holly. And I think, deep down, it is also appreciated by Josh.

I HOPE, even though we are still far away from both kids, I can impart some kind of legacy, both spiritual and otherwise, on my grandchildren. (Holly and Josh's children.)

But the rest of Nurture talks about connecting with younger women who aren't necessarily our biological or even otherwise daughters. I don't have a deep connection with any such woman, but I hope I have been an encouragement to some, like Holly and my cousins Jodi and Wendy and a few young women at church. I also hope that my writing has been a blessing to women I haven't met. And that's what I'm hoping for the rest of this blog post. You see, in last week's homework for Nurture, we were asked to compare lights in our home to the spiritual aspects of light. The three women (out of seven normally there) who attended last week felt I should share my answer with others. So here it is.

Lights in our home allow us to see when it's dark --- Jesus is the light that enables us to see through the darkness to the truth. 

LED lights (among other things) tell us what time it is --- the Holy Spirit is the light that tells me it's time to serve God. 

Some lights, like the ones on my curling irons, waffle irons and regular irons, tell me when those appliances are ready to be used ---- the Holy Spirit is like a light telling me I'm ready to be in service to God. 

My cell phone lights up when I have a phone call - through God's word and prayer, I am in communication with God. 

My cameras have flashes (a kind of light) on them, which illuminates the photographic images I take with them. Jesus, "The Light" is the image of God, and also we are also made in His image, so we must be light to the world. 

My Cultivate group came up with two more: 

Ultraviolet light cleanses, just as Jesus' death and resurrection (this was the week after Easter we studies this) purifies us, and lasers can cut things, just as Jesus can take the things out of our life that are not good for us.