still later when combined with rain clouds.
I slog through daily chores.
I look for the days to grow longer, to show me a tiny bit more light.
The day with more light is soon . . . just before Christmas . . . just before we celebrate the day the Light of Christ came into our world.
My mind lingers on the news of the weekend.
I am stunned at my sense of emptiness.
Dark days swirl about me, not just physically, but emotionally.
Evil lurks in the shadows and pounces on innocent children.
Evil is defined in ways too numerous to count.
In the dark days, people spew out platitudes meant to console grieving hearts.
The words sound hollow.
Deep in my heart, I ache for those parents who don't need fine speeches.
Those words are for the rest of us who feel so helpless and want to do something.
We want to say something but words will not bring back a child who was so eager to grab life!
I cannot imagine how a parent can deal with the fact that pieces of metal ripped through their child.
I cannot imagine what is running through the hearts and minds of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents and close friends of those whose lives were snuffed out by one evil act.
DARKNESS.
ALL of us want to hug those people and say . . . say what? . . . words don't work!
Words are band aids that don't fit on oozing wounds that slice through the ones who are left.
Words in the darkness seem empty.
And then we hear of another who lives in our county, a county full of faith-filled people.
He is filled with darkness.
He bound up three elderly women, 84-90, and taunted them as he sparked their flesh with a taser gun.
He screamed with anger as he ripped pages from their bibles.
These are old women who are on the edge of life . . . physically and verbally abused by one who is just beginning life on his own.
He lives in a very dark world.
They all survived but with severe injuries and emotional distress.
Darkness lurks around them.
Yet, they know how to overcome the darkness.
More and more people struggle in a dark world,
without sources of 'light' to guide them.
This world seems more topsy than ever before.
Nothing seems logical ...
hurting children killing other children.
Hurt pain darkness evil.
It does not end.
Sometimes the nicest, sweetest child is pushed into darkness, to seek evil solutions to problems that only silence envelopes.
Darkness . . . silence . . . absence of light . . . emptiness . . . pain . . .
Evil lurks,
ready to pounce on a tender, hurting soul.
Emmanuel . . . God with us . . . God IS with us . . .
But, if we humans are unable to take the hand of one living in the darkness and lead that person to "God with us, Emmanuel," that child will remain in the dark and evil will suck the life from this tormented soul.
One more . . . and one more . . . and one more . . . remains in the darkness.
Who can lead hurting souls to the place of love and healing?
Who can lead one from darkness into a place of assurance that all have value, that all are created with value and can provide value to the community?
Where are we?
Can we each lead one . . . just one . . . out of darkness into the LIGHT?
GOD .... IS .... WITH .... US.HE IS OUR LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
God sent His only begotten Son to BE OUR LIGHT .... to guide us through the darkness .... to show us a way to skirt around the evil that lurks around us in those dark corners or our lives.
May DARKNESS turn to LIGHT this Christmas season.
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