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"I'm glad I cooked everything when I did, even making the coffee," I gratefully exclaimed. "At least we can eat properly." With that, the lights surged on once more, only briefly. This time it stayed dark. "Great for a surprise romantic meal, isn't it?" I said as I lit two scented candles. Of course, I expected the power to return soon. But it didn't.
After a while, conversation fizzled. I found my two perfumed candles too feeble for reading, so I pondered the deep darkness, both in the room and beyond the window.
Tonight I was enthusiastically going to get at decorating the house. On the basement table was a great heap of glittering bows. In the front entrance, two armfuls of holly were waiting to be snipped to just the right-sized boughs for the bookcases, windowsills and valances. The whole house needed to festive by Friday when the children and grandchildren would arrive.
Not all the cards were in the mail, and there were three Christmas functions on Thursday, for which I must wrap gifts. I also needed to prepare a paragraph for the church bulletin and drop it off at the office.
Still the darkness continued. With a shaky flashlight, I went to search for more candles. I stuck a purple one into my smallest tumbler and a dark green one into a narrow-necked vase. Finally, I took the good white tapers in silver candlesticks from the sideboard and added them to my collection. "Anything for light," I reasoned. "At least I can read now."
No wonder pioneers felt closer. You had to huddle near the flames to see each other and whatever mending or writing material you were working with.
It stayed like this all evening. My husband lit a fire in the fireplace, so the house wouldn't cool too much. After that, he found his old mouth organ and started serenading me with tunes and carols as he sat in the darkness.
As I gazed at the flickering little flames and heard the crackle in the fireplace, I had time to reflect. Would Christmas always be like this for us--bustling and busy?
I had grown up without electric power and had never missed it until I'd become used to it in boarding school.
Jesus, the Light of the World, came before there were electric lights. No wonder the heavenly lights from stars and angels were overwhelming--no one was used to brilliant megawatt advertising. These lights from outer space came to those who were waiting in the darkness. Their brilliance shone just long enough to illuminate the world so it could receive Christ and those who would be His messengers. That is all the light we need, too.
Hilda Born is a member of Central Heights MB church in Abbotsford, B.C.
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