Day 4

Ugh.  It's later than I was planning on being awake, so this might be short.  Then again, I always think that and often end up rambling a bit longer than I expected.  But... I digress.

I am not a morning person.  I mean, I'm not grumpy in the morning, but I just would rather not be awake before 9 or so.  Back in my YWAM days, I would get up and go eat breakfast at 7am every day with my DTS students, and they quickly became used to seeing me enshrouded in a hoodie, stumbling to the cereal bins.  One of the perks of my lack of job is that I get to sleep a little later fairly often.

However, I sometimes spend the night in an older lady's apartment, because she needs to have a caregiver available 24-7.  And when I do that, I wake up early (for me-- I'm sure that my Dad would scoff at my idea of early).  The thing is that once I'm up and have brain function, I actually really like being up.  There is a specific kind of quiet before and during the dawn hours that feels more significant than the late night hours to me.  Maybe it's just the novelty of it, but it's nice.

This morning was one of those mornings.  At first I lay in the dark trying to talk myself out of the snooze button.  And then, as I sometimes do, I began to talk to God.  Mostly grumbling about how I would rather be asleep, I suppose.  And my usual wondering about the best way to get through the day and when I might be able to have a nap.  And then I thought (I wasn't talking out loud; sorry to disappoint you), maybe this is a good time to listen.  What do you have to say to me, God?

The immediate thing that came to me was this verse:  "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."  Isaiah 9:2  

How appropriately Advent-y!  One of my favorite things about this season is the proliferation of twinkle lights and candles everywhere.  This is the darkest time of the year, but we find a way to live in the light.  I love the parallel at this time of year, when it's so easy to understand the oppression of darkness, to the land of the shadow of death.  And, ultimately, our liberation from that land.  A light has dawned!  My drive home was filled with little cheery beams of hope as I drove past store fronts covered in little lights.

So, it's not super deep and definitely not original, but today that was what was on my mind.