Nightlight

Did you know if you turn down the lights, light a match, hold it close to a flat surface (like the wall) and have someone else shine a bright light on it you will reveal a great truth about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ? I did this object lesson on Christmas Eve for our family devotional and afterward RE said, “Mom, you blew my mind. That is the kind of stuff you should be teaching me every day.” I take no credit; I found it on the internet. But this is what it looks like:

 

And this is the verse of scripture we read after I had RE examine the match and its shadow:

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. –1 John 1:5

If you look closely you will see the matchstick has a shadow but the flame does not. Light has no darkness! Light casts no shadow.

Christ often referred to himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Light.” They are synonymous. Truth, therefore, also has no darkness. To first discover and then obey truth is tantamount to happiness. As a family we focused all December on our church’s #LightTheWorld initiative; each day increasing a trait or behavior the Savior embodied. It was deLightful. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “Since Christ is the light of the world we should see everything in His light.”

One of the best things I ever learned about light was from Emily Watts at Time Out For Women in 2014. She recounted the Exodus account of the ten plagues Moses cast on the Egyptians. Frogs. Lice. Flies. Dead cattle. Boils and blains. (A blain is a skin ailment.) Hail and fire. Locusts. And then darkness. Darkness was 9th, only followed by the slain firstborn of every Egyptian home. One might read the chronological advancement of the plagues and say, “Phew, darkness! An easy plague!”

The closest I ever came to a plague was in a Vermont vacation home my parents rented in on the banks of Lake Champlain. A summer storm was brewing and something with the barometric pressure caused about seven zillion moths to infest the rental. I remember trying to watch the NBA Finals on TV but the whole screen was covered with moth mobs. Clouds of moths swarmed all over the house. Greg a.k.a. Vacuum King tried to capture them out of thin air but the rental’s cheap Dirt Devil canister had a full bag and no suction. Greg and I were sharing a twin bed (newlyweds, we didn’t care) and we had to pull the sheet over our heads to try and fall asleep while kamikaze moths dive-bombed into our faces all night. It was creepy. Thankfully it rained and the moths flew on to torture other unsuspecting vacationers.

Why was darkness such a punishment? Why was it cursed enough to achieve Plague Status? I’m not sure, but the scriptures say the Lord told Moses to stretch out his hand and cause a darkness that could be felt. Like strangulation. A darkness so dark no one “rose from their place” for three days, which sounds like no one got out of bed to move. Paralyzing darkness. The silver lining:

…but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. -Exodus 10:23

In a blackout they were promised light through obedience. No matter how dark the world gets, no matter who is pharaoh, or how many frogs and lice and dead cows and skin sores you have to endure in life (and I could write a novel about my skin ailments) it is possible to have a illuminated home. Protect your home and lock its doors; it is your sphere to control and your right to control it. Fill your personal life and lamps with light and truth. Teach your children truth; give them nightlights for their own dark rooms and their own dark spaces. Truth has no darkness, Truth will cast out the shadows.

Photo lyric: "Cast No Shadow" by Oasis (spelling changed). That song that will forever remind me of DurkoHawaii 1996. My parents had shopped for cuff links and rings showcasing Australian opals and it was time to drive home. Nightfall, all seven of us in the car, waves crashing beside us, siblings singing Oasis and Alanis Morrisette at the top of our lungs, shaking the car as we danced to the William Tell Overture. Thank you, mom and dad, for enduring a mainland mix tape that snuck in the luggage!

"Sometimes in the deepest darkness there is no external light-only an inner light to guide and to reassure." -Elder Neal A. Maxwell