Tag: hope

The Last Candle

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Christmas, holidaysLeave a comment


She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. . . . and they will call him Immanuel—which means, “God with us.” – Matthew 1:21, 23 (NIV)

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. – Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)

 It wasn’t a good Christmas for Henry. His oldest son had been badly wounded in the war. And it was another Christmas without his beloved wife Fanny, who died three and a half years earlier as a result of burns suffered in a fire that Henry himself tried to extinguish. The scars from the burns he received while trying to save her made shaving too painful, so he grew a beard—a constant reminder of his tragic loss.

Henry was all too familiar with grief. His first wife died at the age of 22, days after a miscarriage while they were traveling abroad. He’d buried a year-old daughter and a 20-year-old sister. His grief that Christmas after his son was wounded drove him to pen the following words: “And in despair I bowed my head, ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said, ‘For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.’”

The year was 1864. The war was the Civil War. The poet was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Times haven’t changed much, have they? The country is still at war. Our young men and women are still being wounded. And people still carry burdens of unbearable grief, especially at Christmastime. A season that should be joyful is, for many folks, a reminder of what they have lost. 

I didn’t set out to write a column that would depress you, especially on Christmas Eve.  But I know many of you are coping with grief. Perhaps this is the first year without your husband or wife or son or daughter or mother or father. Perhaps you lost your job this year. Or you’ve received a diagnosis that has left you staggering. Perhaps in your pain you’re wondering where God is. Peace is absent from your life.

Oh, how we’d love to capture the wonder and joy and magic of that first Christmas and carry it around with us all the time! But the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds went back to work, the wise men returned to their country, the blazing star disappeared, and a jealous, insane king ordered the slaughter of all male children two and under. 

In 1872 Longfellow’s poem was set to music. Today we know it as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” The last stanza reads: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men.’” 

What a message of hope! Even in our deepest pain and grief and despair, the last candle burns: Immanuel. God is with us. Yesterday, today, and always.

 As I light the center candle on my Advent wreath—the white candle—I am reminded that it symbolizes Jesus, your Son, who came to give us hope, love, joy, and peace. Thank you, God, for the best Christmas present of all. Amen.         

Read and reflect on: Luke 2:1–20.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea for the Seasons © 2018 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

What’s in the Darkness?

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Advent, Christian living3 Comments

Read and reflect on John 1:1–18.

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

When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark. That was because my brother and sister, both older than me, would scare me with ghost stories and hide in the dark, making mysterious noises. I had a vivid imagination even then, and their antics only increased my fear. When I went upstairs at night, I had to flip on every light switch along the way, and I couldn’t fall asleep unless the hall light at the bottom of the stairs was turned on, its beams reaching into my bedroom, dispelling the darkness and calming my fears.

When I grew up, however, I learned no spooks lurked in the darkness, waiting to harm me, and the darkness held no real threat. But still, inky blackness had the power to resurrect old fears buried deep in the recesses of my heart. 

I remember one time my husband, our three children, and I were camping, and all the lights were extinguished. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand two inches from my face. My heart beat faster, and my breath came in short gasps.

“Calm down,” I scolded myself. I thought about turning on the reading light and reading through the night until I fell asleep, but the light would disturb my husband. So I squeezed my eyes shut, pulled the covers over my head, and forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly—and think about something other than the blackness that still held terror for me. 

While adults may scoff at a child’s (or another adult’s) fear of the dark, I believe we need to respect it for its power for good and for evil. 

The Bible tells us there are three kinds of darkness: Physical darkness is the absence of light and can harbor both good (rest) and bad. Our fears, worries, and heartaches are felt more acutely at night, and loom larger than in the light of the day. Spiritual darkness, not knowing what is right and true, also represents everything evil, gloomy, or hopeless. Eternal darkness is hell, the absence of God.

As Christians, we are to avoid spiritual darkness, respect its power to destroy and send us into eternal darkness, but not fear it. Why?

“I am the light of the world,” Jesus tells us in John 8:12. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus, the Messiah, the only begotten Son of God, the child born in Bethlehem, the God-man who never sinned and became the perfect sacrifice, paying the punishment for our sin by shedding His blood and dying on a cross so that the darkness will no longer have power over us. Jesus, whose name means “God will save,” who overcame the eternal darkness of death and rose from the grave, continues to shine in the darkness, and the darkness has not—and cannot ever—overpower Him. 

Like that hall light when I was a child, His beams of love and life continue to reach out to me, surrounding me, enfolding me, dispelling the darkness around me, and calming my fears. I know I need never be afraid of the dark anymore.

As I light the first Advent candle, dear God, remind me that in this season of long, dark nights, that I never need to fear the dark, as long as I walk in the Light. Amen.

From God, Me, and a Cup of Tea for the Seasons, © 2018 by Michele Huey. All rights reserved.