What a day. I found light in at least three moments today. I’ll tell you briefly about each one. First, there was my visit to Kurt. Kurt has been my pastor, my confidant, my counselor, my cheerleader, and my friend. Now he’s in a personal care facility because of Parkinson’s disease. I haven’t gone to visit him there as often as I feel I should, but I went this morning. It was a good visit. His voice is so quiet, but it’s still him deep inside. He always had a dry sense of humor, and if anything it’s drier now, since the Parkinson’s doesn’t really enable him to smile or laugh. (That doesn’t mean he’s not laughing inside, though.) We reminisced and caught up. We shared Holy Communion, which was so important to both of us. We were truly honest with each other – how could we not be? The relationship I’ve had with him over the years is so powerful. I saw God’s light shining in the midst of it today.

On the way home I stopped at a state park to get some “forest bathing” in. I walked out along a trail for a while, and just allowed my mind to wander and imagine, just following where it went. On the way back, I discovered my muse was walking with me (that’s how I talk about it when I’m in the writing “zone”), and she and I started to write my Christmas poem for this year. Thank goodness for “Voice Memos” on my phone so I could record the words we came up with. When I got home an hour later, I was able to knock out the rest, and this year’s Christmas poem is written. Whenever my muse shows up, I always feel like that’s a sign of God’s light.

And finally, this evening. My nine-year-old son has been waiting very impatiently for a package to arrive. Since he got home from school, I think he’s checked the front porch eighteen times to see if it arrived. When it finally did, I heard him get so happy, and a few minutes later so sad. Apparently the thing he ordered wasn’t exactly what he thought it would be. He was crying. I was in a different room, hearing all this, trying to discern if there was something I could do. I just went to him, sat next to him, and asked him to show me what he got. He did, and he explained how it differed from his expectations. I told him that it’s really hard when we get something we didn’t expect, but that maybe he’d find it was okay anyway. And a few minutes later he was actually excited about it. I’m not sure what I did, if anything, but somehow or another his misery changed into excitement. That was a sign of God’s light.

Three things today! What an abundance! Funny thing is: when I told Kurt this morning about this blog project, how I’ve been looking for a sign of God’s light each day in Advent, his response was, “Oh, so in the second week you’ll find two every day, and in the third week three.” I laughed and said that would be too much work! Well, Kurt, it looks like you were right again. I can definitely find two or three if I keep my eyes open.

That’s where I saw the light of God today, the first Friday of Advent.

Image by Patty Talavera from Pixabay