Pause In Advent #2 - Let The Light Shine

My good friend Chris Duffett writes a great blog called "Be The Light". It is full of bright ideas and helpful tips, for people who want to share their faith in a gentle, unthreatening, but meaningful way.
Light is so important at this time of the year, here in the Northern Hemisphere. 

I know some of you in the Antipodes are preparing for your Christmas beach BBQ - but here in Britain, some of us - like Steph, and Mags, have snowy weather to contend with, and it gets dark so early in the evenings.
At 6pm on Friday, I was at my second Carol Service of the season, and it was an open air event. At 6pm, we gathered round a trailer in a car park at the end of the main street in the next town - there were hundreds of adults and children singing, and I don't imagine many of them were regular churchgoers. But the familiar words were sung, and the brass band played, and the school children read the Nativity Story from the Bible, and the Vicar said some jolly good stuff about Jesus the Light of The World, and we wished one another a Merry Christmas. [but it was cold, so Bob and I left before the Red Barrows Charity Wheelbarrow Race, back up the street]

The event began with a "Procession of Light" - from the Church at one end of the street down to the Car Park at the other [traffic is re-routed for 4 hours for this annual community event] Bob had his fancy torch, others had Star Wars, light sabres, and the two churchwardens carried amazing candle-lanterns which are over 100 years old and belong to the Church. My picture did not come out- but here is one from 2015. You can see the candle inside the glass lantern atop the pole.
I love candles, and I am conscious that I blog about them frequently. But I have learned a new thing about them in this past week which has challenged me.
If I buy candles, they tend to be cheap, unscented pillar candles, or tealights [usually from IKEA or Wilko] Mainly because I have often found the perfumed ones to be a disappointment. I've just found out why - it is all to do with the "throw".
When you sniff an unlit candle - in the shop, or maybe as you open the jar/unwrap the cellophane/etc you can smell the perfume. This is called the cold throw. When you light the candle, and smell its perfume, that is the hot throw. It seems that cheaper candles are often produced with a strong cold throw, so in the shop you think wow, this is good for just a quid! but when you light them, the hot throw is much weaker and often disappears altogether.Many are made with only a layer of scented wax on the top, and after a few hours burning, that's all gone. What seemed initially attractive proves to be temporary, superficial and disappointing. A really good scented candle will have a strong hot throw, throughout its life, and will perfume the whole room, every time it is lit. That is why you have to pay so much more for one.

2 Corinthians 2:15 says "Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance" If we are to be the light, let's make sure that when people encounter us, they're not only drawn to the initial signs of love and concern we display- but that we do not prove to be superficial, showing care for just a brief time, and turning out to be a disappointment in the end.
Jesus bids us shine 
with a pure clear light, 
like a little candle, 
burning in the night.
In this world is darkness, 
so we must shine
You in your small corner,
And I in mine