Growing up, my sisters and I had a special \u201cChristmas Sister Pact\u201d that, if broken, brought merciless mocking upon the head of the offender (what are sisters for, after all). Each Christmas Eve, we climbed in the same bed and drifted restlessly to sleep. Whoever woke first had the all-important responsibility of waking the others so that we could creep down the stairs together\u2014quite literally plodding step-by-step in the world\u2019s slowest three-legged race\u2014to take in the grandeur of plump stockings and the shiny treasure trove at the bottom of the Christmas tree. As most parents probably know, this trek wasn\u2019t exactly happening at an hour post-sunrise; we rose long before the sun in those ripe early morning hours that really should be considered the dead of night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back now, what my little kid heart really craved from each Christmas morning wasn\u2019t the pile of presents themselves; it was the moment when, after trudging and stumbling and stepping on toes in the dark, the colorful lights of the Christmas tree blazed in their holly jolly glory. The soul-cleansing breath of relief that, after the longest night of the year for any child, the light blazed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t think I doubted Santa\u2019s ability to follow through\u2014even less so now that I know what was really going on, if you know what I mean! I think there was that splinter-sized sliver in my heart still stuck in the dark, guarding me from the potential pain of disappointment. And as an adult, I have to be honest and say I\u2019m still working on digging that sliver of self-protection out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve walked through some dark days, friends. And no matter how many times I\u2019ve stood at the pulpit of my own heart and preached, \u201cYour light has come!\u201d I can\u2019t help but tuck the tiniest crumb of myself back in the shadows just on the off-chance God won\u2019t come through this<\/em> time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s helped me embrace the light without fear of it fading, it\u2019s this: All of these wonderfully poetic words in Scripture are all past-tense for us. They\u2019ve already come to pass. The true Light, the One John said was coming into the world (John 1:9), has already dawned. Why, dear little heart, are you so afraid of something not happening when it has already come to pass! Jesus has already drowned out the darkness with his radiant, holy, brilliant light. Do I expectantly, impatiently, and achingly wait for the day I get to see what that truly means? You bet. But I\u2019m not waiting to see if the Light will come to shine over those of us living in the land of darkness (Isaiah 9:2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Light has come, and I must have the faith to emerge from the shadows and feel its warmth shining on my face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing up, my sisters and I had a special \u201cChristmas Sister Pact\u201d that, if broken, brought merciless mocking upon the head of the offender (what are sisters for, after all). Each Christmas Eve, we climbed in the same bed and drifted restlessly to sleep. Whoever woke first had the all-important responsibility of waking the others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":72669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent25"],"acf":{"hero_background_image":false,"related_plans":[72991],"weekly_truth":false,"grace_day":false,"share_text":"#SheReadsTruth","devotional_text":"THE LIGHT IS DAWNING<\/b> Growing up, my sisters and I had a special \u201cChristmas Sister Pact\u201d that, if broken, brought merciless mocking upon the head of the offender (what are sisters for, after all). Each Christmas Eve, we climbed in the same bed and drifted restlessly to sleep. Whoever woke first had the all-important responsibility of waking the others so that we could creep down the stairs together\u2014quite literally plodding step-by-step in the world\u2019s slowest three-legged race\u2014to take in the grandeur of plump stockings and the shiny treasure trove at the bottom of the Christmas tree. As most parents probably know, this trek wasn\u2019t exactly happening at an hour post-sunrise; we rose long before the sun in those ripe early morning hours that really should be considered the dead of night.<\/p> Looking back now, what my little kid heart really craved from each Christmas morning wasn\u2019t the pile of presents themselves; it was the moment when, after trudging and stumbling and stepping on toes in the dark, the colorful lights of the Christmas tree blazed in their holly jolly glory. The soul-cleansing breath of relief that, after the longest night of the year for any child, the light blazed on.<\/p> I don\u2019t think I doubted Santa\u2019s ability to follow through\u2014even less so now that I know what was really going on, if you know what I mean! I think there was that splinter-sized sliver in my heart still stuck in the dark, guarding me from the potential pain of disappointment. And as an adult, I have to be honest and say I\u2019m still working on digging that sliver of self-protection out.<\/p> We\u2019ve walked through some dark days, friends. And no matter how many times I\u2019ve stood at the pulpit of my own heart and preached, \u201cYour light has come!\u201d I can\u2019t help but tuck the tiniest crumb of myself back in the shadows just on the off-chance God won\u2019t come through this<\/em> time.<\/p> But if there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s helped me embrace the light without fear of it fading, it\u2019s this: All of these wonderfully poetic words in Scripture are all past-tense for us. They\u2019ve already come to pass. The true Light, the One John said was coming into the world (John 1:9), has already dawned. Why, dear little heart, are you so afraid of something not happening when it has already come to pass! Jesus has already drowned out the darkness with his radiant, holy, brilliant light. Do I expectantly, impatiently, and achingly wait for the day I get to see what that truly means? You bet. But I\u2019m not waiting to see if the Light will come to shine over those of us living in the land of darkness (Isaiah 9:2).<\/p> The Light has come, and I must have the faith to emerge from the shadows and feel its warmth shining on my face.<\/p>","share_image_height":"640","day_number":"17","scripture":" Isaiah 9:2-5, Isaiah 60:1-5, John 1:9","available":true,"ad_banner_name":"","ad_banner_image":false,"ad_banner_url":"","songs":"","key_verse":"","key_verse_reference":"","background_image":false,"background_color":"#FBF7F3","scripture_references":false,"share_image":false,"author_name":"","author_bio":"","guest_social_media":false,"show_ad":true,"ad_override":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\r\nby Kayla De La Torre<\/i>
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