itsawonderfilledlife

Black Friday …

Today, is the day when the Christmas season begins … in our pocketbooks, our waistlines, our social calendars, home decor, music and movies.

It begins in the dark. In an inky blackness similar to the one that preceded the first Christmas.

As the Christmas season has been creeping closer, as the daylight in my northern hemisphere home, my thoughts have been on darkness.

As a solar-powered human (aren’t we all?), I feel each minute of decreasing light as the sun moves toward the southern hemisphere and away from us in the north. I feel it in my energy levels, in motivation, in my soul. On the weekend that the clocks were pushed back, a few weeks ago, I heard myself say … four more months and then the light will be seen to be increasing in our lives again … four more months.

It is as though I was repeating the line from a favorite children’s story,

I think I can …

Then I remembered words from Jonah. His words of telling of his salvation from a deep, dark place. From the belly of a whale, he cried his sorrow to God …

and God heard his cries in the dark.

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’
The engulfing waters threatened me,
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.
To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.

“When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.

“Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

And so, Christmas begins … in the dark, looking for the light.

Stay tuned.