Rivers and Lights
Welcome to a lifelong dream and the thing I’m most afraid of. I’m Kelly and I love you already for being curious enough to read beyond the title and photos and hear my heart. I hope you stick around and read something that offers consolation or inspiration and that whatever it is that compels or convicts you, it ultimately allows you to turn and shine your light in some special way to someone else today!
Let’s start with how I got here. It’s still a mystery yet to be solved. This pursuit of words and the meaning for sharing them has been a relentless pursuit of my heart for as long as I can remember. I have loved the written word in all its forms-speech, poetry, prose, lyrics, scripture- since I was a little girl. Words matter to me. What we say and who we say it to. What we sing and who we sing it to. It’s just been in recent years that I have been burdened with the thought that the sharing of these words living in me is His will for me and not my own.
I have been clothed in self doubt from the moment I felt called to do this. It took me at least two years to decide to write down the first word and another two to even give this project breath at all. The words you’ll read in a future post titled, "The Beauty & the Bewilderment" were the initial inspiration, but the rest of what you read here has taken years of consideration, inspiration, prayer, conviction and help from the Holy Spirit(and some dear friends too). This first post didn’t even materialize in my thoughts until long after future posts were already completed drafts on the page. Matter of fact, If the release of this blog had been dependent on this post alone, it might have never happened at all.
To be honest, this is the third version of this draft; some of the scraps could show up in later episodes, but only I will know, lol. Bottom line is, even as I write I’m still not sure that this is what I’m supposed to do. I was listening to a podcast the other day and the narrators were talking about “putting something good into the world.” I like to think it’s really that simple. What you read here, is my something good that I want to put out into the world and I’m prayerful that God makes it something amazing for the love of others and for His glory.
I’ll start with this: why Light Bearers? Well, when I really put pen to paper–ugh, showing my age already with the pen/paper reference. When I began typing out my thoughts, I would get several sentences in and then feel stuck. So, I would trade the laptop for a book and begin reading, searching for inspiration on what to say next. I did what every modern intellectual does and I asked AI, what references to light does the Bible make? What significance does Jesus give to light? And quicker than I could say “light of the world,” the bot gave me 10 pieces of scripture that referenced light. This one stood out to me, probably because I have heard some iteration of it a million times in my life, but couldn’t have told you where it lived in the pages of my Bible.
Inside scoop: I only know scripture if it appears in a song. I quite literally quote song lyrics instead of scripture and my friend, Alison has to point out to me that what I’m actually sharing is biblical verse. It makes me one part cool, two parts ignorant. Anyways….
"Jesus spoke to them again, I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life."
John 8:12
I remembered these words from my Sunday School classroom reveries. But as an adult, I needed more context. So, I dug in a bit further to find out where he was when he said them and what that might mean to me today.
During the Jewish celebration known as Sukkot(pronounced SOO-kote or SOO-kuss) also known as the Feast of the Tabernacles, there was a significant ritual called the "Illumination of the Temple." In a large outer courtyard in the Temple where both men and women could gather, four massive golden lampstands (some accounts say they were 70 feet high) were erected. As dusk fell on the first night of the Feast of Tabernacles, young priests would climb ladders to light the wicks. The flames produced an incredibly bright light that lasted throughout the night and was said to illuminate the entire city of Jerusalem. The illumination was said to hold meaning in two distinct ways:
An act of remembrance: a visual reminder of God’s provision and guidance
An symbol of anticipation: celebrating the promised glory of the Messiah
The implications of the text are that Jesus entered the temple during this celebration and under the gleaming lanterns and glaring eyes of the Pharisees, delivered those words, “ I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
His declaration that He was and is the true source of divine guidance, knowledge and life is part of my core belief system. And I believe now more than ever, that He gave that light to His followers, with some pretty distinct instructions: use this light that I have given you to love others and show them how loving me will ignite the same light in them.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.”
Acts 1:8
And so it begs the question, what do we do with this light that we bear? I used to think that the gift of my singing voice was my light. I can vividly recall the moment I recognized that the sound I could produce when I opened my mouth to sing was a spiritual gift.
I was in my twenties and sitting in the velvet plush pew at First Baptist Church on a Sunday morning. Our Youth Minister, Jeff Prosser was giving a sermon that day. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t thrilled when I showed up for church that morning to find that a substitute pastor was scheduled in place of my favorite, Bill Fort. I’m one of those annoying people that squirms in my skin when anything out of my routine happens. I schedule every minute of my day in the calendar in my mind and if someone unexpectedly alters that schedule, it throws me into a tailspin. I’m not saying it’s healthy or good, it is just who I am. Flawed, I know. You can start your list now so that we can all be on the same page. I am human, like you, and I have a list of shortcomings a mile long and that’s just one!
Anyways, back to the reason for my discomfort. It has to be said that Jeff Prosser was an excellent speaker and a fantastic human being, but he was unexpected to me on that Sunday morning and that was all that really mattered. I crossed my arms and huffed like a child and listened in obstinance to the message that Jeff was offering. He was preaching from Matthew(though I promise you, I didn’t have a clue that’s where it was from at the time) talking about what it meant to be “salt and light” to the world. He read us Jesus’ command, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all of the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven.” I had been attending First Baptist my whole life. I had been singing in public arenas my whole life. I had yet to put my voice on a lampstand and offer it as a gift for the glory of God.
That moment was probably the first time I could identify God speaking to me directly through the words of a sermon. Now, I didn’t jump up on stage, thank Jeff for his leadership and grab the mic for the invitational song set. I didn’t even reach out to the Music Minister after service and inquire about serving as a volunteer on the worship team. It took several more nudges from the Lord, before I honored the conviction that Jeff invited upon me that Sunday morning and I began serving on the worship team as a vocalist.
I believed then and I still believe now that standing on the stage on Sunday and leading my fellow believers in worship is and was an obedient act to the Lord’s command to shine my light. I take care of this gift and I want to use it in a way that He desires. I believe that I am being a good steward of God’s grace by using the gift that He gave me in service and love to the Lord and His people. But I think I have to do more with this voice than sing to a crowd of people–who, for the most part–already know Jesus Christ.
One, I have to pray that if there are ears in the audience who are lost, broken or have little knowledge of what a relationship with Jesus can do for their life, that something I sing connects them in a deeper way to the realization and acceptance that this love I sing about is not just for me, but for anyone who wants to receive it. I have to be intentional about invoking the light of Jesus before the lyrics pass over my lips and the notes soar across the smoky room of souls.
Two, I have to acknowledge that it’s not enough to reach a few ears, not for Him and not for me either. I realized this earlier in 2024 when the Monday night study group embarked on a journey to “meet the Middle Eastern Jesus.” In the first pages of Kristi McClelland’s study “Jesus and Women,” she described what the waters were like in the Jordan River versus the Dead Sea. The Jordan river “moves and flows” where the Dead Sea is motionless, still. She challenged her readers to live like a river. She encouraged us to take the words of God, the ones we were studying together each week and let them “travel through us to others, moving freely as a river would.”
We labored over her words for nine weeks in pursuit of discovering how each of us were going to live in motion, allowing Jesus to move our words like the current of a river, guiding them to places and people that needed us. People that deserved our expression of the love of Jesus. Which, in case you were wondering, is EVERYONE.
The sessions ended and I was still floating around in the Dead Sea, unsure of what river was meant for me. Months passed before we were joined again, this time in a study about Jonah by Priscilla Shirer. Ironically or by divine design, a journey by water was involved again. In that study, Priscilla invited us to read the story of Jonah and the big fish, seeking similarities in our own lives to the tale of a man, devoted to the Lord’s calling for his life so much as it didn’t inconvenience, challenge or require him to go out of his way. Especially for people that he was sure wouldn’t be open to anything he had to say. Jonah was determined to run as far away from the town and task of Nineveh and he would waste time and effort, even dispose of his own life to avoid going there and doing what he was fairly certain was God’s command.
In a pointed conversation with her audience, Priscilla asks, “what is your Nineveh?” What is it that God is calling you to do that you are running as hard as you can in the opposite direction from? What’s causing you to run? The what’s causing me to run part is easy to answer. It’s all the things: it’s fear, self-doubt, defiance; basically, a general feeling that I am nobody with nothing to offer others, much less the King of the world. In the margins of my study book are questions like:
“How can my own sin and rebellion witness to someone else?”
“How do I know this is for me?”
“How do I know this is His will and not my own?”
Also written in the margin is this: “God’s plan for me isn’t a career path, it’s the posture of my heart.” Super simple, really. Stop trying to control the design, the direction and the map and just open my heart to what lies ahead. Because I’m promised in scripture that if He calls me to it, he’ll equip me for it. And that His plans for me are so overwhelmingly more than those I could have for myself. I’m wasting time trying to ‘figure it all out’ and what I really need is more faith.
One night, our weekly “spirit guide” Melissa, passed out notecards and instructed us to write down what our “Nineveh” was. Who had God been prodding us to talk to? Who were supposed to forgive? What was it nagging at us that we had been avoiding? It was an anonymous activity that began with us tossing our cards into a bucket only to have the cards tossed back into the bucket, shaken and delivered back to us for us to pluck a fellow member’s covert card out and hold in prayer for the remainder of the weeks to come.
I might have mentioned already that this idea of sharing my writings had lived dormant in my heart for quite some time. At the time of the incognito card game I had only spoken about it to one friend and she happened to be sitting next to me on that night. She had repeatedly encouraged me to pursue this calling and I had repeatedly met her cheerful spire with incessant fear and doubt. I assured her that the project was simply a selfish desire and that NOBODY needed to hear anything I had to say. I rejected her with 100% confidence that sharing the words of a middle aged woman with the world was not God’s will, it was my own and that the best thing to do was keep it to myself in prayer and consideration until He showed me that it was truly meant for me to pursue, which I was sure would be never. In the seconds we had to write something on that card, I hesitated–HARD– before I wrote down what was in my heart and flung it into the bucket. Regretting it immediately, I started a barrage of silent prayers that Alison would be the one to retrieve my card so that nobody else would know the desires of my heart and I would avoid any chance of having to explain what it was that was persistently coming up when I considered God’s purpose and project for my life. The bucket traveled across the room, each time it stopped causing my heart to skip a small beat. When Alison reached for her card, I didn’t recognize the handwriting and I immediately panicked. Her card was not my card.
I drew last. I clutched the card in my hand, protecting the privacy of the moment and then subtly turned it over to see the words, written in my favorite new green ink pen: “blog project/book.”
It had traveled through the potential grasp of 13 women and ended up back between the fingers of the very person who wrote it. Me.
I’ve sat with the meaning of that moment since it happened. Was it the Holy Spirit delivering the answer to Priscilla’s question right into my lap? Was this blog project my Nineveh? I still don’t know. I have yet to figure out how to discern my will from His and I’m just gonna jump off the shore of doubt and plop myself right down in a river of fear and faith, trusting that He will guide me where He wants me to go.
I pray that the current will carry me to the people who need to hear Him through me and that He will give me the words to say when I get there.
The words that we share from here on out will hopefully inspire. Guaranteed they’ll be messy. But also guaranteed authentic; the point is to simply share life with anyone reading out there. Give you what I have been given on Monday nights for over two years. Fellowship. Friendship. Comfort and solace…and a belief that there is a Creator who loves you. And He sent His people to love you.
And at the end of each post, a song to sit with. I mean, it wouldn’t be a conversation with me if there wasn’t music involved.
