Spirit of Light

There is a story told about me when I was 18 months old. I think my family was living in Seattle at the time, but now that my mom and dad have both passed on and over 50 years have passed, those sorts of details are sometimes hard to gather and validate.

The story, however, has been validated to me by three eyewitnesses who told the same story independent of the other over the course of my life. It seems that one night after my having been put to bed I showed up in the threshhold of the living room door. That in itself wasn't unusual. My parents put me to bed multiple times each night, bless them. I still don't like anyone telling me it's time to go to bed.

But this particular appearance in the doorway alarmed both my parents. My lips were tinged with blue. So were my fingernails. There was a mad dash to a hospital. I was admitted and put in an oxygen tent while doctors stood puzzled as to what was causing my drop in oxygen. I think I still remember that oxygen tent ... it was cold, and blurred my vision of my parents on the other side.

There was concern. A day and a half this went on. My parents had each other for support, but the  extended network of loving family was across the country in East Tennessee at a time when there were no phones in the households. News of this grave situation for their first born grandchild and niece could not be made know there.

In Tennessee, my grandparents and their son, the last remaining at home, had settled in the living room after the farming chores and supper were done. Darkness was falling, and the room was dimming with the evening. A photograph of me sat on an end table in the corner of the room. While eyes and spirits were relaxing toward rest, all three present in the room became aware of a strange orb of light that entered the room and mysteriously made its way to rest on my photo. The light lingered long enough to make the statement that Rhonda was bathed in light.

It wasn't until weeks later when I had long been safely back to normal that communications were made from west coast to the east, and the trauma and the Light came together for a story to last through generations. There is no satisfactory explanation for either of these events, but I hold on to both of them regularly. I am thankful for life. And I am thankful for the Light. The Light I know as the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ. Whenever I doubt God, whenever I doubt myself, I claim the Light that rested on me and which now resides within me.

As a benediction, I pray that some of that Light from me ... and from you ... will shine upon others in ways that make them grateful for life, and for Light. And may the mysteries of God be wondrous realities in this world.