Turn on Your Lights!

When I was a little girl, people didn't decorate the outside of their houses like they do now.  Oh, there was the wreath on the front door and maybe a Santa Claus on the porch checking his list,

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but rarely did one see multi-colored lights strung around the shrubbery or white icicles hanging from the eaves. It just didn't happen; and on the very rare occasion someone might dare put a string of lights around the roof, it was because they weren't from around here.  As my daddy would quickly point out as we drove by, "Those people are Yankees." Now before that last statement makes your toes curl, please hear his reasoning.  The lights were beautiful reflected in the snow they were so used to up north.  But this is middle Georgia and snow and Christmas just don't mix. Therefore, the lights just set them apart as ... different. 

Of course, now there is hardly a yard that doesn't have some kind of outdoor lighting or decor. Everything from nativities to big blow up Frostys. And many times both in the same yard. 'Tis the season! Whereas my husband and children have at times hung colored lights from my 4-poster bed, complete with reindeer antlers dangling from the ceiling fan when I asked them to put up the lights for me, I have refrained from all the tiny bulbs on the outside. Maybe I just can't get that whole "northern" thing out of my head, but it probably has more to do with pure laziness. However, for the last several years, I have slowly made my way onto the bandwagon by deciding to do a little outside decorating that stretched me passed just a wreath on the front door. So now each year, my sweet (yet sometimes reluctant) husband spends a Saturday morning hanging wreaths, setting up a nativity, buying hay, and placing spot lights in just the perfect locations.  And I'm from the south, y'all!

But isn't that exactly what we are celebrating? What we are shouting every time we flip that switch?  That the Light has come? Yes, most are probably even unaware of the part they play in the testimony of God sending His Son to earth to bring light. In fact, it may never even enter their hearts or minds. But with spotlights shining, and candles set in windows, and thousands of bulbs encircling rooftops, flagpoles and trees, they all are announcing the Good News: THE LIGHT HAS COME! 

And without a doubt, the glory of the Lord creeps across the landscape worldwide and the darkness can never be the same. 

So turn on your lights. Be set apart as different. And announce the Good News. 

HE HAS COME!!!

In Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:4

Just an ordinary moment...