Where was I? Oh, yes. I was writing a blog. Yeah, like a lot of us, I got side tracked due to COVID. Hopefully, that will soon all be behind us.
The year 2020 reminds me of a story I saw on facebook:
A woman went to the dollar store with her two sons. The oldest saw a pack of glow sticks and asked his mom if she would buy them for him. She complied, and the family walked around the store, with the son carrying his package. The younger son saw that his brother had something he didn’t and cried until his mother opened the package and took out a glowstick for the little boy. He happily tottered along with his family until mom turned her back for a moment. Big brother snatched the stick back. Junior started screaming and mom turned around just in time to see her older son breaking the stick! She opened her mouth to admonish him, but before she could, the boy handed the stick back – only now it had started glowing. The little boy stared open mouthed, amazed!
“I had to break it,” the older boy explained to mom. “If it never got broken, he would never have known what it was supposed to do.”
Wow! What a strong lesson!
2020 was a difficult year for many of us. In our own family, my oldest son was the only one to not experience joblessness this past year. It took a while, but most of us are getting back to our feet now, though things are very different from this time last year.
This year has broken a lot of us. Will we glow now? Maybe. That part of our story is still being written, but whether we glow or not, we will still see what this next year is supposed to do.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Paul tells us in the scriptures. That doesn’t mean life will be easy sailing. The fact that Paul wrote this from a jail cell, possibly in chains, probably cold and hungry, tells us otherwise. But the scriptures tells us we can ENDURE all things through Christ who continues to promise us strength to get through it. Paul never once complained about his situation. He actually saw it as a chance to witness to his guards who otherwise would never have known about Christ.
Paul’s situation was broken, but his light still glows today in his letters to the early church.
Now its up to us. 2020 has broken many of us. Will we be just broken plastic sticks, or will we glow? It’s time to decide.
The Reluctant Firefly 