The Light

You gotta love Florida in the winter. After our sweltering, humid summers that stretch well into October and November, the balmy winter nights are welcome relief. But the first year our family celebrated Christmas here in the tropics, it just didn't seem like Christmas. 


Braving blizzards, wearing snowboots and mufflers, sipping steaming hot chocolate after ice skating, seeing my breath on a crisp-cold morning, scraping ice off my windshield-- these are only memories now for this transplanted Chicagoan. And yet they were the backdrop for every Christmas of my life until I moved away from home. 


But no matter what region of the country we've lived in, or what the weather channel said the temperature was outside, some Christmas traditions have been delightfully similar everywhere.  One of my favorites is the way the world lights up at night during December. As the nights get shorter and colder, one by one, houses and stores and neighborhoods light their entryways and yards and doorways. I especially love the way the stately royal palms are dramatically outlined against the inky-black night skies here in Florida.


I understand why the tradition of the lights came about--as the darkness creeps in earlier and earlier in December, it gets a little depressing. Cold AND dark in the North is hard to take. The twinkling lights, on the other hand, are cheery and uplifting, and warm you to the soul. I miss the lights as they are extinguished, one by one, in January.


At Christmas, the lights remind me that Light has come into the world and has pierced the darkness. It guides Wise Men toward it. It is uplifting and welcome relief in a cold, dark world. But most important and glorious of all, this living, loving Light will never be extinguished.


And that warms my soul, right down to my flip-flops.


"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."   John 1:5


 "You, LORD, are my lamp; the LORD turns my darkness into light."           2 Samuel 22:29