The Soot of Our Souls

Looking deeper into why the light wasn’t shining out of my black and white mosaic candle holder never occurred to me.  But, tonight was different.  A night to relax, burn some candles and just be.  I picked up the holder and for some odd reason decided to pull the candle out from its depths.  Making a mental note to buy a new candle, I stopped, looking in, I noticed that soot had entirely covered most of the top half of the inside of the holder.  I had been wondering why light was only shining out of the bottom half.  I grabbed a tissue and cleaned it, placed the candle back inside and lit it.  My heart was overwhelmed at the parallel that came to mind as the light shone out brightly.  And I had to wonder, is that how my light has been looking to God lately?  It’s how it felt to me.  That my light was dimly shining, so dim that I was wondering if I had His Light, was it all just an act?  And it occurred to me, that deeper look that I had been putting off, the one that I'd actually been longing to take, that one that I was so afraid of because God might bring me pain, that pain that I so feared even though it brings refreshing and newness and growth.  It was time to take a deeper look, to clean off the soot with the cleansing Word of God.  It was time to be refreshed, time to be restored even more.