Light in the darkness...

Monday night we went to see the Zoolights here in Portland with our family, then enjoyed dinner together, and ended the evening with a Christmas pajama fashion show by the youngest granddaughters.

We looked forward to the coming week of Christmas preparations.

Tuesday afternoon,  our youngest daughter texted us to inform us of the shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall, right across the street from where she works and ten minutes from our home.

It was horrible and miraculous news all wrapped together.

It was horrible that two people lost their lives and thousands of shoppers were terrorized.

 It was miraculous that in a mall filled with approximately 10,000 people, only two lives were lost.

And then Friday came, with the news of the shootings in the elementary school in

 Newtown, Connecticut.

Though across the country and not close by like the mall shooting, 

the slaughter of 20 little ones hit especially hard on us, and, I believe, on our whole nation.

In the past couple of days since, I've had two thoughts stay with me.

The first was of the slaughter of little boys under age two, ordered by King Herod,

 in his sick and twisted attempt to annihilate the coming of the promised Messiah. (Matthew 2:16)

Then Herod, when he realized that he had been misled by the wise men, was furiously enraged, and he sent and put to death all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that territory who were two years old and under, reckoning according to the date which he had investigated diligently and had learned exactly from the wise men.

I wondered if that, really occurred at this time of year, like the slaughter in Newtown.

Regardless of the when, the who is the same...

for it is satan, the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy who instigates these horrible and sickening slaughters.

My second thought comes from Isaiah 60:1-2, (Amplified Bible)...

Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness [all] peoples, but the Lord shall arise upon you [O Jerusalem], and His glory shall be seen on you.

In this time of dense darkness, gross darkness, as some translations say,
how we need the light of God to come, and His glory to rise upon us.

This morning, our church, and probably most other churches in our nation,
joined hands and interceded for the families who lost their loved ones this week, and for all those affected by these tragedies.

We also asked that God's light and glory would shine through us in this dark,
 sin ravaged world.  

We prayed that God would 
shine through us as individuals,
shine through our families,
shine through our church.

One way we can shine is to continue to notice, to record, to declare,
God's blessings and goodness in our lives.

While we are mourning with those who mourn,
we continue to live a life of eucharisteo, a life of thanksgiving.

In this way, we are daily declaring that God is good and does good,
and that satan is the one who steals, kills and destroys.

In our thanksgiving we are declaring our allegiance to the One
 who is Light, and Life and Love.

Keep counting, my friends.
 Arise.
 Shine.

************

I’ve taken the Joy Dare.

I’m counting one thousand thanks in one year.

I hunt for thanksgiving using the prompts Ann gives us each month.

If you are interested in joining in, click the link above or at the bottom of this post.

I continue to count my thanks

piling up gratitude day by day

in my little black journal…

 #2560-#2580

3 gifts unframed art-

-huge coloring sheets for the grandkids

-trying some drawing and watercoloring in my journal

-three year old granddaughter learning to color, not just scribble

3 gifts berry red-

-strawberry freezer jam and peanut butter on toast for breakfast

-a warm red fleece shirt

-little granddaughter's rosy red cheeks when she first wakes up

3 gifts striped-

-wool Christmas stockings

-peppermint sticks

-well used red and white striped kitchen towels

3 gifts stamped-

-Christmas cards arriving in the mail

-presents ordered online arriving in the mail

-a surprise package in the mail: some books and a bag of wonderful shelled, organic walnuts from a blogger friend, (thanks Brit!)

a gift gold-

-glittery NOEL hanging above the mantel

a gift scented-

-paperwhites in bloom on the kitchen windowsill

a gift bent low-

-our hearts, our nation, by this week's tragedies

3 gifts Bethelehem-unlikely-

-that something Miraculous can be birthed in the midst of sin and death

-that His glory can be seen in and through earthen vessels like us

-that Jesus will return and make wrong things right and rule and reign with righteousness and justice forever and ever

Gratefully yours,