It Only Glows When
I love this story.
A young mother was with her two little boys in a small grocery store.
The five-year-old was walking by her side and the two-year-old was strapped in his stroller.
As they turned the corner of an aisle there was a display of glow-sticks strategically placed at the eye-level of the stroller occupant.
Of course, when the two-year-old saw these colorfully packaged objects he wanted one (or many).
At first his mom ignored him — until his voice became louder and shriller.
Now everyone in the store knew he wasn’t happy.
To manage her own sanity, she gave her little boy a glow-stick and, once-again, peace was restored.
Suddenly, the five-year-old took the toy from his little brother and, of course, the wailing returned — which predictably caused irritation in the mother who frowned sharply at her older son.
"Why did you take his toy?" she sternly demanded.
Older brother then broke the glow-stick causing some inner chemicals to mix. And suddenly, the glow-stick began to actually glow.
He then returned it to his little brother.
"It only glows," he said, "when you break it."
I think that’s a good way to understand how best to live life.
We are like glow-sticks.
At first we want to hold and protect ourselves from all harm.
A reasonable, yet frankly impossible objective.
We all break in one way or another.
Things don’t go as planned. And yet, in some mysterious way, when the bad break or breaks happen, when we suffer loss that can’t completely restore us to an earlier more innocent time, it is then that we are able be altered in profoundly new and perhaps better ways.
Is this what always happens?
Unfortunately, no.
There is more to it than this.
Yet I think, like the chemicals in a glow-stick, our brokenness can come in contact with God’s Spirit.
This then results in a spiritual transformation that causes a light from within us to begin to shine.