This Little Light of Mine
The children filed in for the finale of our week-long festival at A World of Music. The kids had worked hard for their individual classes of musical theater, singing, guitar, sign language, silly skits, dance and rhythm. Now it was time to sing the last song, a version of This Little Light of Mine by Addison Road.
Daniel sang for his mom, two uncles and two aunts.
Sam and Eden sang for their brother, parents and grandparents.
Dominic, Isabel, and Javier sang for their mom and baby sister.
Voices raised. Faces shining. The children held battery-operated candles and sang to a packed crowd of family and friends with cameras flashing from all corners of the sanctuary.
Julie (not her real name) sang for only one person. Her dad. And he wasn't even at the church. He was lying in a room across town under hospice care. Julie's gaze and voice focused on the cell phone her mom held above the crowd, capturing her daughter's words:
One day there will be no more pain
And we will finally see Jesus' face
So until then I'm gonna try to brave the dark
And let my little light shine *
Sometimes in our wanderings of faith, we step into a moment when we find ourselves rubbing shoulders with the divine. When the dust and weariness of our earthly travel falls away and we can see briefly, yet clearly, into the other side.
Author Mary DeMuth calls this a thin place.
In her memoir, Thin Place, she describes this moment as a place where heaven and the physical world collide, one of those serendipitous territories where eternity and the mundane meet. Thin describes the membrane between the two worlds, like a piece of vellum, where we see a holy glimpse of the eternal--not in digital clarity, but clear enough to discern what lies beyond.
I found that thin moment, in a young girl, who when faced with the unimaginable, offered all she had.
The gift of herself. For her dad.
Her voice, a little light in the darkness.
No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. Luke 11:33 NKJV