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It is my pleasure to share another insightful post from guest writer, my awesome sister-in-law, Lisa Pruitt:

This morning I awoke to the cold, scooted into the kitchen and began making my coffee. It was still dark out and when my coffee was finished, I settled in the living room to enjoy it. I sat there in the room, slowing coming to life, and looked around. I thought how lovely the room looked with the Christmas tree and lights. If I squinted just right, the lights on the tree blurred into stars and I thought about Jesus’ birth and the star of Bethlehem.

In the readings for today, I found myself reading John 8 over and over. There is so much happening in the chapter. Many verses in John 8 have great importance for Christianity. However, it is John 8:12 which resonated the loudest with me today. Jesus said “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but have the light of life.” What absolutely beautiful words. Jesus’ light was a star over his manger, it is the stars of our night sky, and it is in the lights on my Christmas tree.

I remember my astronomy class in college. A simple definition of light is visually perceived radiant energy. The science of light is intermingled with the science of color. Light can be reflected and refracted, concentrated and redistributed. It has a wavelength, a speed and can be polarized. If I were to research light in any encyclopedia, I would find information about all the different types of light. But the light of Jesus might not be on those pages because it is a light which we cannot see with our physical eyes.

When we are born, our eyes use physical light to see the beauty of our parents’ faces, to perceive colors and shapes, to detect wonders and dimensions. Although physical light is important for sight and even for our physical health and well-being, it is the light we cannot physically see that is vital to our spiritual health. It is the light of Jesus. Without Jesus’ illumination, we would be in spiritual darkness. We fear darkness because evil things can happen without light. More crimes and sins happen in the night than at any other time.

I remember a time I was alone in a cave for hours. I was waiting for a group to return and had turned off my light. The longer I sat there, the more the darkness seemed to become palpable. I could feel it, sense it. The darkness almost seemed to be a living thing, swirling around me, whispering, teasing me. My mind played tricks, I imagined that there were tendrils of darkness wrapping around me like long, skinny fingers. However, I fought down my rising panic because I was in control. Yes, I was in total darkness, but I was there because I chose to be. I remember a couple of times picking up my light and holding it, resting my finger on the switch just in case. Just in case the water levels rose. Just in case a rock fell on me. Just in case a cave cricket decided to take a walk on my face. Just in case the darkness started whispering.

I once read a study about a group of people who agreed to live in isolated total darkness for 48 hours. One man wrote about his experience. He said that he was unaffected by the darkness for the first four or five hours; even considered it soothing. He fell asleep and awoke after a time but had no way to measure how long he had slept or how many hours the experiment had lasted. He went through a period where he paced the room, slamming into the walls, hurting himself just so he could have some sensory input. Then he began to hallucinate and imagined that he saw a large pile of oyster shells. Because he was lost in the darkness, he mind created its own apparations.

Without Jesus, we are lost to the darkness. Jesus’ light reveals truth. Without His light and His Truth, everything is black or shades of gray. Maybe I would not own up to my mistakes, misdeeds, and my many imperfections without examining myself in His light. Jesus said that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness but have the light of life. His light reveals the way to salvation. When we believe in Him we can have eternal life.

Just as the fluorescent light in my kitchen encourages my orchid to grow, bathing in Jesus’ light can assist my spiritual growth. Keeping Jesus in our life can change us and allow our spirit to blossom. We become rooted in Jesus love which can allows us to withstand the angry winds of turmoil and sadness which enter our lives at times. When we lose our way, Jesus light can be used as a beacon to find the path again. He can lead us out of the dark cave, the dense forest; he can help us find our way. When his light appears, I must turn from the darkness and follow him or I will be forever lost.

I must not only allow his light to guide me as a compass but I must receive it, absorb it, and embrace it. By doing so, Jesus will become part of me. I will not only reflect His light but it will shine from within in me and help me to make correct choices, to truly walk in a Christian life which is guided by Jesus’ teachings. Because Jesus has given us His light, we can enjoy a relationship with God that stretches into eternity.

Today’s Reading.

Over the past week, I’ve felt excruciating pain like I’ve never felt before as a result of improper form while exercising. On a scale of one to ten, there were times that the agony was almost ten and I was very close to heading into the emergency room. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sit, and could barely think straight (hence I’m writing this journal entry the night before it is scheduled to post).

Many thoughts crossed my mind in my darkest hours; here are some of them:

1. We don’t appreciate being “pain free” when life is good. We need to be praising God every single day, throughout the day for being God and the many blessings he has given us. I recall a commercial a while back with a tagline that was something like, “when you’re not well, nothing else matters”. While not entirely true, it resonates with me because the bulk of my waking moments were spent with the hope to be well again.
2. Did God allow this so that I would grow closer to him? I don’t think God zapped my lower back but I do believe he allowed this to happen. While I wouldn’t wish the situation on anyone, and I hope to never go through it again, I can say that I did grow closer to God through this. There was deep prayer and meditation, crying out, and devout prayer from my wife, children, and others.
3. There are people in the world suffering. I’m certain there are many people around the world who live in similar pain all day every day and this caused me to have a little more compassion for those who are hurting. We never know what people are going through. I’m fortunate to have people who love me and take care of me (like Amy did making a nice makeshift bed on the wood floors as that was the best place for my back to heal).
4. Thankful for medical professionals who are experts and truly care about their patients. This week I talked to a nurse on the phone for a consult, spent time in a medical clinic with numerous people inspecting me to rule out various scary things, and spent time on the phone with a kind and generous friend who is a physician. Every interaction I had with a medical professional was quite amazing, and I’m left in awe at the gifts God has given people. What if everyone found their true calling and lived it out to the fullest?
5. While most pharmacy medication is “man made”, I’m deeply thankful for what the proper dosage and usage of various medications can achieve. There were a couple times when I thought “I cannot take this anymore”, and then the medication kicked in. Praise God for giving people the knowledge, wisdom, and foresight to produce medications that help and heal when utilized appropriately.

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63)

BJ’s post from yesterday titled “Do you want to be healed?” really caught my attention because much like my physical pain and suffering, the weight and impact of sin can bring us to a dark place. I want to be healed physically and I want to live life on this earth, but what I really need is an eternal healer, and eternal life. There is only one physician who can heal us from the shame, sorrow, guilt, and loss that we encounter through our sins, and his name is Jesus.

2 Chronicles 18; Revelation 7; Zechariah 3; John 6

Its sad and weird to be talking about the passing of a freind, a brother, a tribe member. We are still so young.

The first I heard was the day after, when Randy called to say that Hiatt was the first of our brotherhood to pass from this life last Sunday. He was a prominent member of our small tribe; a group of guys who have history together, many all the way back to elementary school. These are relationships that have made us all better in many ways!

Hiatt, in my estimation, was the Alpha of our group once we all arrived at Hinsdale Central High School and perhaps even at the convergence of elementary schools at the old Junior High. Being an Alpha was no small thing among a group of leaders in a community of achievers. — perhaps fostered some deep sense of responsibility in him.

If he was alpha then I was zed. He was good at everything, sports and school and making friends. His charm and charisma extended beyond the football field, he was a guy, that guys wanted to be, and girls fell for. I was the opposite.

The reason I share this contrast is that we became brothers despite our differences. It happened in the Canadian wilderness and over the course of several memorable canoe trips that bound us unexpectedly.

In the woods we were equals, paddling on the vast freshwater lakes, trudging across many challenging portages and contemplating under the stars. We talked about life and its greater meaning, of faith and what that meant to us, and about the splendid and divine complexity of nature and its revelation of the hand of God.

In the summer of 73, before the shooting, Hiatt and I took an epic canoe trip from Ely to the other side of the Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park We had four and a half days of constant rain and overcast skies, muddy portages, mosquitoes, wet sleeping bags, and difficult fires at night near the shelter of our tarps and tent.

Our two-man-tribe sunk into grumbling disappointment, in the misery of our saturation, knowing that we could have been home drinking beer and hanging out with our other friends. It seemed like years since we had laughed. We began to regress like the survivors in Lord of the Flies; killing chipmunks by throwing our sharp knives. Knives we named “Buck” and “Snake”, who became characters in our strange drama, perhaps reflecting the alter egos of our darker selves.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, we stood on a rock at lake Kawnippi when the sun came out. Its’ power was so great the moisture from our clothing rose in a mist, up to meet the parting clouds. I’ll never forget looking over at Hiatt who hadn’t smiled for days. That big, warm, taunting smile of his was as welcome as the sunshine. The warmth and the joy had returned to him and me. We laughed again and said to each other it had been a great trip. Everything was worth it in the end!

He will be missed.

Last Wednesday I woke up around 2:00 in the morning and thought of Hiatt. I had not yet cried for the loss of my old friend, but now the tears came. Not only tears but some deep groan from within my spirit. What kind of friend had I been? I remember the last time I saw him, on a boys trip about ten years ago.

Him driving up from the Southeast in his perfectly restored Cherry Red Porsche, his Gandalf the Grey hair blowing in the wind on the road to eternity.

On November 22nd, 1975, the anniversary of the day Kennedy was shot, Hiatt and two other friends were shot in the parking lot of a bar just outside of Hinsdale. Hiatt got the worst of it. The bullets changed the trajectory of his life. Had I?

He will be remembered.

We have a Jasmine tree that travels from our sun-room to our deck and back each year. It has been in our care for eleven years to the surprise of the nursery that now tells me they are hard to keep alive.

Each summer it blossoms and blooms, sending out the smell of incense and honey, many times over. At the end of summer it’s brought inside bigger, stronger, and healthier. However by the end of winter it always struggles, leaves falling, branches dying. The worst of it is the attack of the scale bugs. A growing army of tiny insects, slimy dark disk like parasites, slowly sucking the life out of the tree, each day.

So it is by hand, each spring, we wash the bugs from leaves that still live, over and over, and this buys time to get the tree outside where we can pour systemic pesticide into the soil, across the feet of its roots, up into its sap. It is this poison, medicine really, that gives life back to the tree, by taking it away from the blight of dirty mindless creatures wanting to steal its splendor.

The Jasmine tree reminds me of life and its struggle. And for the Jasmine in our home, if it wasn’t for the care it received, the cleansing of its infection, the restoration of its vitality — its life would be shorter. But each summer it survives again, its beauty shared again, and its pleasing aroma hangs in the summer air behind our home and among our friends.

We are the tree and we are its keepers.

Hiatt brought beauty into this world, and into our lives. He cared for us and we for him.

He will be remembered. He will be missed.

Like all of us, he is in God’s hands.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” -John 1:1-5

Today’s reading.

Born in a manger, lived a sin-free life, demonstrated an astonishing amount of wisdom and knowledge of the Torah at a very young age, turned water into wine, drove out evil spirits, enabled the blind to see, raised the dead, miraculously filled nets with fish, healed the sick, walked on water, calmed a storm, fed thousands with a minuscule amount of food, taught the truth out of love, forgave sin, and loved people ridiculously.

In turn, he was betrayed, hated, put on trial, lied about, found innocent but still sentenced to death, tortured, mocked, spit upon, and nailed to a cross to die a slow, agonizing death. His response?

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34a)

His name was Jesus and he stated those words while hanging on that cross. I know I take this statement far too lightly at times. He asked for forgiveness for those who persecuted him, just like he taught in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:44. He could have chosen to elude or flee from his captors (remember all of the miracles), but he knew the plan and he was all in; and he is still all in for you and me, for all of us.

That’s the man we are celebrating this Christmas season. Let’s not take it lightly. Our sin put him on that cross, but we get the best Christmas present ever should we choose to accept Him; complete redemption and forgiveness, and faultlessness before the throne of God Almighty.

The crucifixion documented in Luke 23 (hint: the underline suggests a hyperlink, and suggests that the author of this blog post would love for you to read this brief account) concludes with a brief story of the two criminals who were also nailed to crosses next to Jesus. One of the men said “save yourself and us” with a seemingly unrepentant heart. The other confessed his sin and admitted that he deserved to be up there dying as well as acknowledged the innocence and authority of Jesus. I love this short story as a model for us today. We’ve all sinned, so we’re all criminals in God’s eyes until we’re forgiven. We can either try and hang on to this broken world and deny him (like the first one wanting earthly rescue), or confess and put our trust in Jesus, and have the hope and promise of eternal life with him in paradise forever. Believe and live.

2 Chronicles 9; Jude 1; Zephaniah 1; Luke 23