"The Light Shines in the Darkness
and the Darkness has Never Overcome it"
John 1
The sun was shining brightly--and it was a very dark day for the man who came into the vet clinic carrying a small bundle in a blanket. Tears were in his eyes. He vanished into one of the back rooms and then emerged without the blanket. This could not be good. But he stopped to pat an enormous, handsome Golden Retriever named "Barley"--9 months an 98 lbs. The man stopped, patted and smiled through tears. The tail wagged endlessly, and we all know that dogs can smile, don't we?
During my appointment, I learned that the man awakened to find his dog had died in the night. She was elderly, had been treated for many old age problems, which of course relieved none of the shock and pain of loss. Except for Barley that is. What is there in the darkest of days that reaches out to us with the light of life that can never be put out in us? Through death--life reached out and that man took hold.
These days of Advent go deeper and deeper into the darkness toward the shortest day of the Solstice. Christians take that day and recreate it with the birth of God's Son and the coming of Light. "I am the Light of the world," he proclaimed, without saying--I give light, but "I AM the LIGHT." It is truly one of those mysterious ways that our extremity in grief becomes God's opportunity to shine that Light into our lives. Or maybe it takes dark days to open our eyes to Light uncreated.
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