Piercing The Darkness “Come, Let us walk in the light of Jehovah” Isaiah 2:5 I grew up in a tiny fishing community along Nova Scotia’s eastern shore.  My home, along with my Paternal Grandparents, two Uncles and a Great Aunt, were located at the very end of our community.  When I say end, I mean the lighthouse was our nearest neighbour! The streetlights running through our “town” ended at the pavement’s edge.  We, however, lived a half mile past that!  Locally, the dead-end, unpaved, unlit stretch of road was nicknamed “Corkum’s Road.” We all knew the rule.  Be home before the streetlights come on or you are walking down Corkum’s Road alone! Even in the daylight, I was none to brave to walk that thick tree-lined stretch of road alone!  The thought of walking it at night when you couldn’t see you own hand in front of your face… well, that was just not an option! However, like most teens, one moonless night in Mid-December, I lost track of time at a friends house and found myself standing at the pavement’s edge, staring into that lightless stretch of road!  There was only one way home and much to my chagrin, it was through that darkness!  This was pre-cell phone days so there was no calling a friend or a parent to come to my rescue!  I had to either go it alone or sit there in the cold and wait for my parents to get concerned and come looking for me.  In those days, that took alot longer than it does today! My courage was weak but the cold nipping at my nose spurred me to action!  I took a deep breath (expecting it to be my last!) and took off!  Running is one thing but running blindly in darkness is yet another!  My feet barely hit the pavement.  My heart pounded loudly but not loud enough to block out every snap of a twig and every eerie noise a deep wooded country road offers in the pitch black of night!  I stumbled!  I caught myself only to stumble into another hole. I began to gasp for breath!  I started to sob!  I was certain that “something” was pursuing me!  Panic set in.  Every breath I took hurt!  My legs hurt!  I was not going to make it!  I thought the darkness would swallow me whole and I’d never be seen again! Then, I rounded that final bend in the road and  ...I saw it!  Piercing the darkness like a powerful lighthouse beam was the little candle in the middle of the wreath my Mom hung each Christmas in our kitchen window!  My heart leaped with joy!  My  strength was renewed as the hope of that  tiny light defeated the hopelessness of the dark! That one tiny candle lead my tired weary steps through the darkness to the safety and warmth of my home. The world is in darkness- a growing darkness!  Many are stumbling and loosing their way and hope. Many are on lightless roads being pursued by the enemy.  Many are in danger of being overcome by the darkness. They need to know – there is a LIGHT in the window!  2000 years ago God placed a candle of hope in a animals’ feed trough in a lonely stable.  With His first infant cry, the LIGHT pierced the encroaching darkness and  God declared through the ages, “The darkness will never defeat my LIGHT” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.  In Him was life, and that life was the LIGHT of men.  The LIGHT shines in the darkness…”  John 1:1-5a As we light our first advent candle this Sunday, may we do so as an act of protest to the darkness!  May we remembered that darkness and light cannot exit in the same place.  In fact, darkness only exists in the absence of light.  May this advent season cause us to vigilantly tend the light burning bright in the window of our souls so that it may always pierce the darkness, offering hope  to those  still stumbling in the dark! May our hearts swell with hope as the advent wreath’s light grows with the lighting of each candle and may the glorious radiance of that wreath fully lit on Christmas Eve remind us that we WILL make it safely through the darkening days ahead and home to Our Father’s embrace.   ~~~~The link to the original article and website is: http://www.stephrobbins.com/index_files/MMM_Nov242008.htm