Turn on All the Lights

To prepare for the Warm Welcome as my daughters arrive home from school, I rush around the house, waking it up with lights, candles, a snack, and music. But mostly, it’s the lighting. Turning on the lights creates that feeling of a grand entrance into some new space of joy and cheer.

As I’m turning on the lights–the lamp on the piano, the one behind the chair in the corner, the overhead one, the kitchen, and the little side table lamp–I realize that there’s something about turning on the lights. Shadows scatter. Hidden things come out of hiding. Now, we can welcome what needs to come inside.

I think about welcoming the Holy Spirit into every part of my life, of turning on every light in every dark corner. I think about what I do that welcomes God, and I prepare my heart like I prepare the home each new afternoon.

PS: For those of you counting, I know I didn’t post Live with Flair yesterday! I actually forgot for the first time since March 2010. Besides that one day in Kansas when I couldn’t post about the wind turbines, I now have two days (at least two days; I’m not sure!) I haven’t posted: that one day in Kansas and the Sunday I just forgot.

What was I thinking? The whole day, I couldn’t wait to begin reading Tozer’s The Crucified Life. That’s what I thinking and perhaps what I might have written about. I was also thinking about how much I love being a student and my upcoming courses I’m taking this summer for part of my staff training with Cru. I was thinking about friends undergoing trials, about whether I had enough in the refrigerator for school lunches all week, and about an upcoming trip. So that’s what I would have offered up at Live with Flair!

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