A Wrong Turn Down Memory Lane...

Pause For Thought from Kiera Phyo, Youth Director at Tearfund, an international development charity.

Like many people, my electricity tariff goes up this winter.. and as the evenings get darker it costs that little bit extra to light up the house.

This week is the Jewish festival of Hanukah...and surprisingly, like us, some ancient Jews had a energy issue too.

For them, it was keeping alight a sacred candle in the Temple. Despite only having enough oil to burn for one night, miraculously it lasted 8 days, the exact amount of time it took to make new oil. - Sadly I don’t think that means God will provide my household with a weeks worth of free electricity!

Stories like this encourage me to hope that life will bring along the extraordinary in my average week, the exceptional story on a darker day. But I believe God also has another trick up his sleeve - a deeper magic - something even more miraculous.

I’m a recent mum and a couple months ago I had the delightful experience of a baby with conjunctivitis. Unexpectedly, my Doctor told me.. “You can use medicated eye drops, or you can squirt your breastmilk into your daughter’s eye!” ...No jokes!

So hoping to awaken my inner earth mum, I go for the breastmilk option - I’ll spare you the logistics! 3 days later Layla’s eyes are all clear. My milk isn’t anything supernatural, it’s normal. And so am I. It is amongst all this normality, that we find the deeper magic. I like to think that my body healing my child is my 8 days of oil!

I believe in a God who believes in us… He has given us - the average, the normal – the ability to brighten another’s darker moments...to be that miracle story.

Jesus says, “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!”

Perhaps the best source of light this winter is you and me.