My friend, Cynthia Ruchti, produces a radio show and wrote a story which chronicles one of our Wisconsin adventures! Enjoy!
CHILDREN OF FIRELIGHT
I don’t know if you’ve ever been insanely busy before, but for that handful of our listeners who might have at one time or another been pressed by their workloads or deadlines or to-do lists, we offer this reality-based story that might resonate and turn on a proverbial lightbulb.
I was one of four authors on a research trip. The book on which we collaborated had a deadline that nipped at our heels the whole way. To get a true feel for the setting about which we were writing, we explored backroads and forthroads, ate each meal at a different quaint café or restaurant, picked up leaves and rocks to study their composition and shape, took pictures, read historical markers, collected information of all shapes and sizes distributed by the Chamber of Commerce, the tourism bureau, book stores, artist colonies, and points of interest.
We also skipped our traditional budget-friendly lodging choice and instead shared a room in a charming inn. Research.
The inn had a gas fireplace in the sitting area, a treat we relished. It seemed an unnecessary but welcome luxury until it turned into something more—our saving grace.
After days of gathering facts and brainstorming plot lines, we itched to get to the actual writing. And the looming deadline barked its own orders—WRITE!
Dragging ourselves through the last few minutes of the time we’d allotted for exploring, we headed for the inn and a full night of productivity. We planned to put our laptops in front of us and make their keys smoke with our writing fervor. With pizza on the table and an assortment of hot tea to sustain us into the wee hours, we booted up our computers and—
The power went out. Not just in our room. Not just the inn. Not just the neighborhood. The whole town.
Not to worry, we thought. It’s temporary. These things usually are. No ice storm or blizzard beat outside the windows. Sure, it was a little windy, but…
We understood why the term pitch black became a cliché. Perfect description. In that tourist town, generators were apparently reserved for genuine crises. A thick blackness turned everything quaint into the dark belly of a coal mine.
The gas fireplace stayed lit. It was our only source of light and heat on a bone-rattlingly chilly night. We huddled next to its warmth, hesitant to use our cell phones for fear we’d drain them with no way to recharge. No power. We couldn’t depend on our laptop battery power lasting long enough to create our stories. Again, no way to recharge. And we couldn’t see well enough by the light of the fire to pack for leaving the next day or read the books we’d brought with us or study the plethora of research materials we’d collected.
With no electricity, we lost water pressure as well. Too bad, so sad, we couldn’t do up the dishes in the kitchenette.
After a few hours, the innkeeper’s assistants came to each of the rooms offering emergency glow sticks. We held the glow sticks as if they were more than just a novelty offering green mini-illuminations of comfort. The ridiculousness of their faint light compared to the spotlights we needed sent us into a Grammy-unworthy version of “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine.”
The darker the night deepened, the softer our conversation became—we who had talked non-stop to take best advantage of our short time together as friends and writers. We quieted our discussions, our laughter, our flurry of brainstorming activity.
The fire from the fireplace threw its comforting embrace around us as we sat in the darkness and thought about life.
We told stories from the heart rather than imagination. We encouraged one another in the struggles we each faced. We let our tightly wound centers relax until the sounds in the room disappeared except for the faint lap of the fire’s flames.
It seemed as natural as anything to slip into a quiet time of prayer for one another and for our project. We couldn’t do what we’d planned to do, what we wanted to do, what we thought we should do, what our deadlines dictated. Instead we did what God wanted all along.
We prayed.
We quieted ourselves and prayed.
The power came back on hours after we’d gone to bed for the night. When the lights we’d left on powered up, rather than feel relieved, we quickly turned the lights off, a little sad that the wonder of a firelit night was over.
In the morning, as we slipped back into “normal” life, one of us shared that her morning devotional time included this verse from the Bible. Ephesians 5:8—“For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”
How much more meaning that verse held after the forced quiet of the night before!
We’d moved cautiously, not daring to venture out of the fire’s illumination. We’d treaded carefully in our conversations. We’d kept our voices low in honor of the sweetness of the hour. We’d slipped naturally into prayer and slept with thoughts of the Lord and His grace overwhelming us.
As we considered the weight in those words from Ephesians 5:8, we sensed the Lord encouraging us to “walk as children of firelight,” with that same unhurried, serene, gratitude-rich peace we’d experienced the night before as we let go of our agendas and technology and our connections with the outside world.
“Walk as if you had no electricity, no deadlines, and no preconceived notion of how your days are supposed to go,” we felt Him say.
“Walk as children of firelight.”
We’ve written radio broadcasts before on the subject of power outages, about staying connected to our power source.
This one’s a little different, though. We pray that you too can feel the urgency in the Lord’s voice when He encourages us through Scripture to “walk as children of Light,” or “as children of firelight.”
We know we need to walk as if we belong to Him, making it obvious that we’re changed, we’re His, we’re redeemed and grateful for it.
But don’t we also need to consider walking through our lives in the same spirit we writers did on the night our plans were turned upside down when the lights went off?
Don’t we need to take a serious look at how peaceful life can become if we let it, if we disconnect from the outside world and the technology that keeps us tethered?
What do people do who have to draw close to the lone source of heat and light when they can’t flip a light switch or plug in an appliance or turn up the furnace? They talk and dream and pray.
Where do leisurely conversations—with others or with the Lord—work into a life that moves from one frenzy to another? Where are the pockets of time with no noise, no sound? When do we drop all activities as if they weren’t as important as listening to Him…because they aren’t?
Do you too sense the Lord telling you to live as if the power were out and all you had was the light of His presence?
You have been listening to THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME, written and produced by two women with one desire—to share the Hope that can transform lives!
Does the Lord have to make it impossible for us to do the work we’d planned in order for us to grow quiet enough to do the heart work HE planned for us?
It seems that way, doesn’t it?
What if we intentionally turned off the electricity and turned on the fire? HIS fire?
What if we chose to walk away from the important things on our list in order to attend to THE most important things?
What would happen if a whole generation of His people became “Children of the Firelight”? What could He accomplish in us and through us then?
Listen to that passage of Scripture in the New Living Translation. Ephesians 5:8-9—“For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.”
THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME
Box 56
Vesper, WI 54489
Take some time to check out the resources on our website, all designed to draw you closer to the Fire of His love for you. Our web address is: www.heartbeatofthehome.org.
Cynthia's debut novel--They Almost Always Come Home--releases with Abingdon Press Fiction May 1, 2010. www.cynthiaruchti.com
