A candle in the darkness.

     While for most of my life I've feared the light at the end of the tunnel to be a gorilla with a flashlight; a candle in the darkness has been the constant hope.  I have often missed the candle as I was so busy fending off the gorilla.  Maybe you can relate.  Events tend to grow to the over powering size before you can crack your knuckles!  What might start as a simple thing as running out of gas, the complexities of missed appointments, inconveniencing others, calling AAA and other events morph a small problem into a big one over a matter of minutes.  Suddenly the kids have to be picked up by a neighbor or friend or relative, dinner is definitely going to be late, and the whole evening has been thrown off.  You sit back in the seat of your car in 90 degree weather waiting for gas and let out an exhausting sigh.  What else could go wrong?  Triple A calls you back and says that the delivery of the gas will be delayed another hour due to an emergency.  Your husband/wife call to say that they are slammed at work and can't pick up he kids, groceries or other items on your long list of to do that won't get done.  Then your cell phone dies.  Still think there is no gorilla at the end of the tunnel?
     What we don't see because of the tunnel vision are all the small points of light...candles in the darkness.  You were in the slow lane of the freeway and had a safe place to pull over.  There were people you could call on to pick up the kids and keep them safe.  The car/truck was out of gas and not broken down (heaven knows you can't afford yet another bill).  The windows roll down!  Small candle but in the heat of the day any breeze at all will be welcome.  The kids have to skip a sports practice but do now have time to get their homework out of the way.  Plus they get to spend time with someone other than the usual "family".  You have money to fill the tank with gas when you do get going again.  A candle in the darkness can be a thousand little things overlooked because we cannot see outside the tunnel.  Don't forget the wife/husband who is working late as they are bringing in the income that allows all of the family to have a life to begin with.  You didn't have an elderly person or small child with you causing undue stress in the heat.  I could go on but I think you get the picture.
     I'm not saying we should be thankful for everything that goes on in our lives with the "everything happens for a reason" mentality.  I am saying that if we have a Shirley Temple attitude we will one day crash and burn because that attitude is not realistic.  Yet...there is a candle in the darkness.  When we have done all we can, when the world is done throwing everything at us that it can, when we have been let down in spite of all we have done, and when we feel like failures because of the things happening outside our control; then is when we need to look for the candle the most.  Jesus said that if we sought him we would find him.  The Bible is full of hope and encouragement that don't beckon the end of the world or the gorilla!  Sometimes it takes me a bit of downward spiral to get to the level where I'm knocked on my but and can only look up.  Even then, somehow, I manage to dig the hole a bit deeper with my focus on the gorilla instead of the candle.  Ever felt like that?
     Next time...we say...we will think, do, see or handle things differently.  Will we?  Not if we don't begin to look for the candles shining around us.  Besides God, there are friends, relatives, bosses, co-workers and many others who have been placed in our lives as candles.  If we spent less time blowing them out and more time sheltering them from the wind we wouldn't have time to focus on the gorilla.  You and I have been given today.  Not tomorrow or even the next day.  Today.  This moment and hour.  Not tomorrow or the next hour or moment.  My year has been full of events that did take me down a bit initially.  Then the people around me began to emerge as candles and even though my life is forever altered, the gorilla is smaller.  One day perhaps the gorilla will not be seen because the light of the many candles is so great.  Light a candle and defeat the darkness.