A Single Candle    

It's what you sow that multiplies, not what you keep in the barn.  Adrian Rogers

I was thinking about candles this morning.  My Mom makes candles for Purple Ranch and one of the things we do at our events is we give a votive candle to anyone who is a cancer survivor. 

This past weekend we did the Ennis Bluebonnet Festival and we met some amazing people.  One of the most joyful things I get to do is to give another cancer survivor a candle.  We were blessed this weekend by getting to meet 3 cancer survivors and 2 people who had family members who are cancer survivors. 

You don’t often think of how close to the surface emotions are when it comes to cancer survivors or their family members.  There was one young woman whose mother was a survivor.  When I gave her a candle to take to her mother, tears welled up in her eyes.  There was another young mother who is just now going through treatments and has a young 9 year old son.    

I had another gentleman, whose mother is a survivor.  He asked me if we keep track of the number of candles we give out and if we write them off on our taxes as a donation.  I explained to him that we don’t know how many candles we have given out over the years, I just know the joy I feel in my heart when someone is touched by that small gesture. That joy is worth more than money could ever buy.

If I had to explain what it feels like to know the kind of love Jesus felt for people it would be in that moment when you hand them a candle and the tears well up in their eyes because they know a stranger cares about them and that same person is not expecting anything in return. In that moment my heart sings, that is the only way I can describe it.    

I thank my parents for giving me this opportunity to touch someone else’s life in such a small way.  When I look at my Mom’s hands where arthritis has bent the fingers, yet she continues to labor over each one, I understand where the joy comes from.  God created each of us to love one another.  We have to practice that kind of love every day for it to be present in our hearts.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I am so blessed to be a cancer survivor.  Cancer was the biggest trial that has ever happened to me and I praise you for allowing it.  I see people differently now.  They are no longer just strangers.  You created them in your image and if I can help one person feel they are not alone in their fight against cancer, then I am blessed beyond measure. I praise You for the amazing gift of love.        

Scripture:   Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  1 Corinthians 13