Lights

Arise, shine, for your light has come.

It is twenty-four days past Christmas. My husband walks into the living room, eyes the fake pine garland and tiny colored lights wrapped around the banister behind the piano and says,

"It's time we take these down."

"I don't want to take them down."

I hear myself and think how much I sound like one of the five year olds I work with. But maybe that's because it's the gut-honest truth. I'd prefer not to take down the Christmas lights.

A week ago, I took down the tree. For goodness sake, isn't that enough? I am forty-eight years old. We have lived in this house for twenty years. Our children are 23, 18, and 16. We had a beautiful Christmas. I thanked Jesus for it all day long. Usually it's my daughter, but this year, I was the one lobbying to keep the tree up for an additional week. So when it came time to take that pretty, sparkle-adorned, memory-decorated plant out of my house, for the first time ever, I nearly cried.

It's the darkest season of the year. I'm going to miss the warming glow of those lights in the corner of the living room. I figured a compromise would be to leave the lights wrapped around the banister. Now he wants those gone, too. What more does the man want from me?

"christmas tree ornament" by zaimoku_woodpile is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I'm not overly sentimental. I can say, "Oh, what a lovely Christmas card," and then cut the picture of the manger scene out, hole punch the top, add a ribbon for a gift tag for next year and recycle the rest. I buy mostly practical gifts and rarely spend hours sobbing over my kids' baby photos. Our house is small; we have to stretch the corners of the room a little to accommodate the tree and all the accompanying decor for the holidays. On top of that, winter is my least favorite season. (Although God and I are working to change that this year.) You'd think it would be easier all around if I just complied right after the festivities wrapped up and removed it all.

So what is my problem?

It's the light. I dread the loss of the extra light in the room. Winter's already the darkest season of the year. On sunny days, I stand at the window, closing my eyes as I lift my face to the sun. Even through the glass, it warms my skin and fills my soul with light. We can't do anything about the temperature outside or the shortness of daylight. But we can choose to keep the light inside.

Maybe it wasn't the end of the Christmas season I was grieving as my eyes welled up taking down the tree this year. Maybe it was the idea of the absence of the light of faith. After I had removed all the ornaments, the only thing left was the sweet twinkling lights that had illuminated my imagination for so many weeks. First I unplugged the star at the top. The Star of Bethlehem. The signal that lit the way for the humble local shepherds as well as the majestic kings hundreds of miles east. But even packing the star away didn't affect me as much as pulling off those strings of lights, disconnecting them from each other and their power source as I went. One by one, whole colonies of lights were extinguished. Until there were none.

"christmas lights (ii)" by Clara T S H is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

Suddenly, shockingly, the corner of the room was in shadow. The tree stood bare. With nothing to adorn it, it looked cold. It may as well have been back in the ground in the bitter wind at the tree farm.

We brought the tree outside, and I felt the loss, felt the hole in the room. I grasped for something to fill the soul-void. That's when I decided to keep the lights on the banister.

Maybe I'm making too much of this. Maybe you're thinking, "Soul-void? Really, Amy? It's a tree and some cheap lights from the drugstore, for heaven's sake. Get over it."

I agree. Things are just things. But inspiration comes from God, and I will not ignore it. We are lights in the world. When one light is extinguished, whether we know it or not, the whole world feels it. We have the power to light the way for others, illuminate their souls, when we are connected to our ultimate source of life and light, Jesus Christ. May our light never go out.

In Him was life and that life was the light of men.