Being the light {in the dark}

It's funny when it happens; when you are feeling the rising waters of overwhelmedness hitting.
When you feel like there needs to be another word invented for "tired"  that has stronger and more dynamic implications.

You're searching for words: "I'm just so… so… tired."  It feels flat on your tongue when you say it because you mean so.much.more. but it is the only word that your brain grabs for, so it comes out.

And then - suddenly there is this pause. Like, you know time doesn't really stand still, but you are given this little gift of 

*a moment* 

and it feels kind of like a slowing of the speeding hands of the clock. 

It came for me last week. 

A full day. 

A buzzing brain. 

Quiet noises become deafening after 8+ hours of doing life with four boys.

A little shuffling and a small squeaking make you jump with a startle of much higher potency than they should induce. 

And then, you know, the washing machine starts to smell slightly of burning rubber. 

And you find pieces of plastic in with your clean laundry. Hmmm. Maybe if I ignore it, it will not be so??

Something spills… dirt granules under your bare feet gives you an uncalled for anxiety…. you sit in front of the computer screen adding up numbers that don't look like they will stretch quite far enough… and then…

the power goes out. 

No lights. 

No more computer screen.

It no longer matters that the washing machine is dying a mysterious death.

What sink full of dishes?

Put the vacuum away.

No more fighting over the Wii.

Power

       Down.

And that was my moment. 

Dave went to the gas station to buy fuel for our generator. And me and those crazy 4 monkeys, who moments before were scrambling and yelling and shuffling and squeaking, came to a 

Pause. 

K and I sat on the couch. Jay was on the love seat. Mali and Noe shared a spot on the chair. We just kind of looked at each other for a while. 

"When will the lights come back on?" - Mali's voice was hushed. Like the absence of electricity turned the volume down on his voice. 

I told him I didn't know. K grabbed his Ipad which had gotten a full charge for the day already. He went to the song "How Great Is Our God", a long time favorite, on his playlist. 

"The splendor of a King, 

clothed in majesty

Let all the earth rejoice

All the earth rejoice"

I could just feel us, as a family, relaxing. 

I asked the boys to sing with me. So we did. 

"He wraps himself in Light, 

and darkness tries to hide

And trembles at His voice

Trembles at His voice"

Jay asked what it meant to be wrapped in light, and to have darkness hide. 

We looked around. The sun was slipping below the last tree and true darkness was settling into our power free home. 

I felt a soft head settling against my arm, and saw the soft glow of K's Ipad screen. I talked about the dark that was filling our home, and how sometimes the world we live in can be dark like that. But Jesus is Light. He is everything good. And He is wrapped in Light. So if He stepped into a room as dark as the living room was becoming right then - it would be filled with Light again. Just like the world can be filled with Light, even as darkness creeps in, because Jesus is the Light of the World. 

And the most exciting thing I told them? - That Light resides in *us*. So when we walk through a dark world, we are spreading that Light everywhere we go! The darkness has no where to go when Light illuminates the area it is trying to fill up. 

So darkness tries to hide. 

How great, how great is our God. 

It didn't last long. Thankfully, it was less than 2 hours before the power was back on.

{Having flushing toilets is a very good thing}

But oh how I needed that moment. Sometimes God has to literally pull the plug to get us to stop. To see the important and whisk away the urgent.