Nan's Calendar

by Nan Forehand, Statesville, NC

I read something recently that has kept coming back to my mind. Up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is Linville Caverns. I want to go there sometime. I read that when one goes down into the caverns to a certain depth there is complete and total darkness. The report stated that if a one stays in the darkness long enough blindness occurs. The trout swimming in the water below the earth in the caverns are blind. I am thinking in terms now, of spiritual blindness at this point. When a person allows the darkness of negativity and destructive thoughts to become manifest as negative actions or at times, lack of action that would bring in the light (the Light of God), I can understand how one can become spiritually blind, even to the point of losing connection with the other senses God gave us. A person can hear words spoken with good intentions and yet, not hear. It is as if their spiritual ears stop picking up the sound waves and are unable to process the sounds. As well, they can still speak, but the spiritual voice is quieted to the point of becoming mute. How sad for a spirit to become blind, deaf and mute and then succumb because of a failure to thrive. God didn't design our spirits to live in darkness and He didn't design us, physically, to live in total darkness. Why would He have given us our senses if He didn't want us to use them to the fullest extent. I understand, there are those who were born sightless, some unable to hear and others born unable to speak. They do the best they can with what they were given, even to the point of heightened awareness of the senses they were given to accommodate for the lack of the other. I want you to be that beam of light in the lives of others. Your smile or encouraging word may be the only bit of light that shines through the dark abyss in which a human being cowers. Be careful, though, because when one has been in the darkness so long, too much light at once may be overwhelming. When you hold the candle and share it with another, your own light is not lessened. Rather, the darkness is lessened and both can see better and therefore, both are comforted. Matthew 5:14-16 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.