In Genesis, we are told God said, “‘Let there be light’. And then there was light”
For some of us last week, it was not so simple.
After the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through Cincinnati leaving downed wires and trees in its path, close to 1 million households were left without electrical power --- for days.
No power.
No lights.
No refrigerators.
No computer.
And for some, no phones.
This literally hit us where we live.
All our modern conveniences were suddenly inconvenienced.
Looking back on the blackout, I had a light-bulb moment. Modern technology supposedly came about to keep us better connected and to help us get through our days. Somehow though, the opposite tends to be true. For example, on a normal evening in my house, I can be found working on my computer, my husband is hooked up to his laptop, and the kids are connected to either an I-pod or X-box game.
Where’s all that connectedness?
So it is that when the power goes off like it did last week, we are left with only one thing: each other.
“I’m so bored!” my youngest walked around muttering, only 3 hours after the electricity shut down. “What is there to do?”
My suggestion of doing homework on the porch in the last light of daylight was not met with a positive response.
But as the darkness of the evening hours arrived and the currents of electricity never did, we all found ourselves in our back room surrounded by open windows allowing the calmed night air to blow just enough breeze in to make the flames of the candles dance across the room. My older son brought out his guitar and played some songs for us.
I didn’t know he could play that well.
Soon, my younger son started talking about what causes the winds to stir up like they had just done.
Who knew he had learned all that?
Later, my husband was sharing how he got a call from a recruiter who was trying to lure him away from his current job. Then he mentioned he gets a call like that at least once a week.
I never knew that, either.
Over the next few days without electricity, I was not able to work on my computer, cook or wash. We had our moments of impatience and, like so many others, would have to throw out any semblance of food in our once cold refrigerator. But what I was able to do more than made up for what we lacked due to no electricity. Because what I was able to do was talk to people in my life that I hadn’t had the time --- or more correctly –taken the time to talk to in quite a while.
Maybe God sometimes takes away the conveniences we have come to know in order to teach us what we really need to know.
Sometimes He brings on the dark, to help us see the light.
For some of us last week, it was not so simple.
After the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through Cincinnati leaving downed wires and trees in its path, close to 1 million households were left without electrical power --- for days.
No power.
No lights.
No refrigerators.
No computer.
And for some, no phones.
This literally hit us where we live.
All our modern conveniences were suddenly inconvenienced.
Looking back on the blackout, I had a light-bulb moment. Modern technology supposedly came about to keep us better connected and to help us get through our days. Somehow though, the opposite tends to be true. For example, on a normal evening in my house, I can be found working on my computer, my husband is hooked up to his laptop, and the kids are connected to either an I-pod or X-box game.
Where’s all that connectedness?
So it is that when the power goes off like it did last week, we are left with only one thing: each other.
“I’m so bored!” my youngest walked around muttering, only 3 hours after the electricity shut down. “What is there to do?”
My suggestion of doing homework on the porch in the last light of daylight was not met with a positive response.
But as the darkness of the evening hours arrived and the currents of electricity never did, we all found ourselves in our back room surrounded by open windows allowing the calmed night air to blow just enough breeze in to make the flames of the candles dance across the room. My older son brought out his guitar and played some songs for us.
I didn’t know he could play that well.
Soon, my younger son started talking about what causes the winds to stir up like they had just done.
Who knew he had learned all that?
Later, my husband was sharing how he got a call from a recruiter who was trying to lure him away from his current job. Then he mentioned he gets a call like that at least once a week.
I never knew that, either.
Over the next few days without electricity, I was not able to work on my computer, cook or wash. We had our moments of impatience and, like so many others, would have to throw out any semblance of food in our once cold refrigerator. But what I was able to do more than made up for what we lacked due to no electricity. Because what I was able to do was talk to people in my life that I hadn’t had the time --- or more correctly –taken the time to talk to in quite a while.
Maybe God sometimes takes away the conveniences we have come to know in order to teach us what we really need to know.
Sometimes He brings on the dark, to help us see the light.
