Dear Reader:

Quinn Caldwell (“All I Really Want”) in his Christmas devotionals talks about the “miraculous’ sighting of a “glory.” People who travel a lot on airplanes have a better opportunity to have witnessed this optical phenomenon and it is always breath-taking.

A glory is made of sunlight scattered back toward you. It’s much smaller than a rainbow, and it’s made by light scattered from the droplets of a cloud, instead of falling raindrops. It has to do with sunlight being bent and scattered back at the viewer.

Before the days of air travel, people spoke of glories they’d seen while mountain climbing. The same conditions – the sun behind and a cloud ahead – can also cast your shadow onto the mist. Then it’s possible to see a glory around the shadow of your own head. That type of glory is called a brocken spectre. The glory is round, like the halo you sometimes see around the sun or moon, and it comes in muted rainbow colors.

Quinn goes on to make this powerful observation:

“What we have to scale a mountain in a rainstorm to maybe see, Jesus wears all the time because he scaled a cross in a firestorm. When he did it, it changed everything. The author of Hebrews claims that because of what Jesus gave up and what he refused to give up. because of what he let go of and refused to let go of, because of what he sacrificed and because of what he refused to sacrifice, the whole universe bent around him forever. 

His gravitational pull is now so strong that there is nothing in this world or the next, not even light itself, that can encounter Him without being reflected, refracted, or rerouted into a new and more beautiful course of life. 

This all leads to an amazing opportunity awaiting us in 2018!

“We can hurtle into next year at the speed of light, just as we did this year, just the way we usually do…without any direction…or we could also do this: 

“Become glory-fied. How might we let our life become part of the beauty that crowns that baby in the manger/ how can we let our course be bent, slowed, refracted into something more beautiful than we can ever have managed on our own?”

So until tomorrow: Let us ask Jesus to bend our lives like His brilliant light… sending us off in a new direction…shining like glory.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my amazing blog readers who have stuck around a lot longer than I ever imagined. You don’t know the feeling I experience each day to awaken to my blog friends’ comments, laughter, and “Ah-ha”  moments. It is so much more fun going through life together with others.

May you all have the most wondrous year – in 2018….and may blessings fall down upon you. Thank you for your support and love.

Some new “Word of the New Year” responders:

Gin-g chose CARE because she remembered her mother instilling that in her a child and she continued doing so up until her death. She did a good job because all of us who know Gin-g think “Care” should be her middle name.

Janet Bender said she has two words…because they go together. Solitude and Relationship. She wants to carve our more time to be still and listen…building a personal relationship for our Creator to guide her along the right path.

Linda Carson’s word is still SMILE: (Linda does have the sweetest smile in the world…perfect with working with cancer patients…it is what drew me to her almost ten years ago when I first met her!)

I also want to keep my word.  Its the one gift that I was given that has always come fast and freely.  It may not be the prettiest but it is heartfelt and most usually returned.  I smiled at a little girl being carried by a parent  and she was looking at me with big eyes observing the world from her perspective.  When I smiled, she smiled back and it made my day!  Such beautiful innocent little faces.  Thanks for getting us all thinking and feeling blessed everyday.  Happy New Year!  Linda