My sister-in-love sent this to me months ago.
“In the days of apartheid in South Africa, Christians there used to light candles and place them in windows as a sign to themselves and to others that they believed that someday this injustice would end. A candle burning in a window was a sign of hope and a political statement. The government didn't miss the message. It passed a law making it illegal to place a lit candle in a window, the offense being equal to owning a firearm, both considered equally dangerous. This eventually became a joke among the kids: "Our government is afraid of lit candles!”
They had reason to be! Lit candles, more than firearms, overthrew apartheid. Hope, not guns, is what ultimately transforms things. To light a candle as an act of hope is to say to yourself and to others that, despite anything that might be happening in the world, you are still nursing a vision of peace and unity based upon something beyond the present state of things and this hope is based upon deeper realities and powers than the world admits. To light a candle is to state publicly that you believe that what's real and what isn't is ultimately determined by powers and issues that go beyond what's seen on the evening news. To light a candle is an act of political defiance.” Ron Rolheiser
This was especially meaningful to me since we had just lit, for the first time, an incredible candle over Christmas, which had been given to us by dear friends around the time of Jordan’s move to heaven. Tied around the candle is a card that reads the song he sang days before, “There is a light that always shines. It shines in the day and it shines in the night. When the dark days come, and the sun isn't bright, I will be shining for I have a light.”
We viewed the lit candle as an act of defiance against the darkness of everything around us, demanding us to focus on it. Jesus has given us eyes to see where our son is, what our purpose here is, where our destination is, and where our Hope lies - in Jesus..JPG)
