Shine On

I spent a lot of Friday and really all of Saturday putting up Christmas lights.  I have the distribution of the interior Christmas decor (trees, etc) down to a science.  I did almost all of that on Thursday evening, but I am new to the Christmas lights game.  I decided we should really try this year, and to that end, I took the 30 boxes of icicle lights I bought on clearance last year and (even though Whit was working and I had all the kids "helping me") on Saturday I was determined to hang them all up.

I took Whit's big, huge ladder, and my boxes of Wal-Mart plastic clips and absolutely zero knowledge of what I was doing and I just started going.  If you know me, you will know that I have occasional manic (not diagnosed or anything!) fits where I get going and I just cannot stop.  This was one of those.  I am telling you, I took breaks to be a parent only.  Otherwise, I was up there, clipping, hanging, connecting new strands, moving the ladder, lather...rinse...repeat.

I am not a complete moron.  I plugged each and every strand in to check that it worked before putting them up.  I set the ones that didn't work aside, as diagnosing the various reasons for such malfunctions is beyond my limited skill set.  Every single strand I hung worked.

So I decorated all day.  I got lights all the way across the house and around the side and then across the back patio.  Oh, I was so proud.  I stopped to put the kids to bed.  I went back out for my pinnacle moment, I was ready to plug them in just before my husband came home.  He would oooh.  He would aaaaaahhh.  He would be so impressed with my industry, my skill, nay, my artist's touch.

I dug around in the garage until I found an extension cord long enough.  I recall standing on that ladder, peering at the row of lights that stretched out in front of me.  If I closed one eye, it looked like they stretched out forever... or at least until the fence line.  I plugged them in.  They lit up!! And then promptly went out.

What!?

Maybe I had a bad cord.  Checked it.  Not the cord.  Maybe something went out on that strand.  I moved the ladder.  I am a pro at moving the ladder now, so that was no biggie.  I plug in the second cord.  They light up! And then promptly go out.  WHAT THE SNOWBALL EGGNOG CHRISTMAS TREE???  What is wrong!?

Okay I should say, on the record, that I know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  I stand by my decision to plug in the third strand.  There was an outside chance it was the outlet I was using, so I tried another outlet on the THIRD strand.  Same.  Exact.  Thing.

Happiness evacuated the premises.

Cue my husband's arrival.

So it turns out, I might have had just a few too many strands all on the same uninterrupted line, or something.  Suffice it to say, if one bulb goes out on a strand, they all go out.  As I have pondered this over the past day I have come to a conclusion.  I feel like it's a good analogy.  (It might be that the haze of my frustration has befuddled my brain, so if this doesn't make sense to you, feel free to let me know).  In any case, here is my epiphany for the week:  Humans are like that strand of Christmas lights.  Except if you look behind us, the lights go on and on and on in that direction too.

We lived with our Heavenly Father before we came here.  We knew and loved Him and He loved us.  He created us!  Then He sent us here.  We will go on being forever after we die, so that string of lights really does go on forever, just like it looked (and felt!) to me.  One other similarity--we have the capacity to be full of light.  His light.  He wants us to have it.  He is dying to fill us with the light of His love, although to be more precise, He really did send His son to die for just that reason: so we can return to Him and be filled with His light forever.

One tiny little short can derail all His glorious plans.  He has provided us with the means to set things right.  The way to prepare for His light again.  We have an entire kit to repair our bulbs, so to speak, if we will just read His instructions (the scriptures!) and then DO IT.  Oh we may need more help.  That's where other people come in.  They swoop to the rescue.  Neighbors, friends, the occasional electrician!  God will do whatever it takes to get us there.  Oh how He loves us.  Oh how He wants to see the glory of our lights shining for all the world.  Unless we let a little thing derail us.

I was listening to one of my favorite hymns in church today.  Number 27.  Do you know it?  Praise to the Man, a hymn about our prophet, Joseph Smith.  Let me be clear here.  In our faith, we DO NOT WORSHIP JOSEPH SMITH.  We worship exactly three deities, who are all related.  God, our Heavenly Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, a member of the Godhead who agreed to stay in His Spirit form to help us all recognize truth and light when we hear, see or experience it during our sojourn on earth.  And yet, there is a big push right now in the media to malign our faith, and our entire belief system based on the acts, whether real or exaggerated/twisted, of one man.  The man who helped restore the gospel.  Don't get me wrong--I LOVE Joseph Smith.  I have a testimony that he was called of God.  I believe that in a very difficult time, he did something truly earth shattering.  As a young boy of only 14, he followed the directions of God the Father and His Son, and then followed their ongoing directions either directly or through angelic messengers.  I believe that to my toes, and yet, that is one of the least important parts of my testimony.  My real testimony has everything to do with God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Ghost.  We only need the Book of Mormon because it has been through less translation error and it outlines some aspects of Christ's gospel a little more clearly than the Bible.  It adds to it, nothing more, nothing less.

As I listened to and sang this hymn I thought how these questions about, nay, attacks upon Joseph Smith are Satan's current method of attacking the faith, the belief, the light, of so many people I know and love.  I thought of how those people are letting one misdirection from the adversary blink out their entire strand of light.  I thought about the joy I have from the gospel, from a relationship I enjoy with my Savior.  I thought about the beauty of the light of so many souls all around me and I rejoiced in that beauty and I sorrowed at the diminishment of that light.

So my message tonight is a simple one: Let your light shine.  This isn't specific to Joseph Smith and it's not only applicable to mormons.  I think this is true for any Christian on earth.  Don't let one little bulb going out short circuit your testimony, your love for your Savior.  Don't let a hiccup today derail your eternity.  Happy holidays everyone!  Our Heavenly Father truly sent his Son to live here on Earth, amidst all of us imperfect mortals.  After living a perfect life, and being abused in every way possible, Jesus Christ still loved us enough to die for us, and then to live again.  I am so grateful for that knowledge and for the beauty of the light all around me.  Shine on.