LIGHT of the world

these ideas come to me in the wee hours of the morning {or night...depending, right? :-)}

we do the traditional advent candle with a nightly devotion *every evening*. pat leads it. the kids listen. it's wonderful.

but the reality of it is that it happens maybe 3 times a week...with pat's work hours and other LIFE stuff going on.

i wanted this season of advent to have a more consistent flow in our hearts...and i realized that the kids and i eat dinner together every.single.night. i can use that time!

the idea was to transfer the "advent candle" idea to our dining room. we started out with 4 candles there...and lit 1 candle during dinner the first week. it was DARK! like, hard to see our food dark! but that was the point. we were anticipating The Light coming...and slowly walking towards the light as we remembered HOW He came.

and then i switched it up. and decided to have a candle for EVERY day. 25 candles. so we went from 1 candle to like 9 in a day. but have been lighting one more every night since. the light is getting brighter and brighter! it's so beautiful!

and i read from Ann Voskamp's new book, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, while the kids eat. they like to try to guess which story from the Bible will be next...it walks through the WHOLE Bible...and how it whispers of Jesus coming from the very beginning.

all those candles were making my OCD self a little crazy, so i added a burlap ribbon underneath them all to *contain* them.

it has become a beautiful time for us each evening. i didn't really think it through, just started doing what seemed meaningful as i thought of it and it's evolved into something we all look forward to each day...anticipating the Light of the World coming!