{"id":20764,"date":"2020-03-19T00:21:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T07:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=20764"},"modified":"2020-03-19T00:21:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T07:21:43","slug":"this-little-light-of-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/this-little-light-of-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"This Little Light of Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Scott Rosekrans<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Can you imagine living in darkness?\u00a0Not being blind, but not having light when the sun goes down.\u00a0You\u2019re living in a tent, a shed, a dilapidated camper, an old motorhome, or your vehicle.\u00a0You have to conserve your propane for cooking and temporary heat.\u00a0You have to run your engine to keep the battery from running down but that burns precious gasoline.\u00a0When the sun goes down your life just couldn\u2019t be any more dark or hopeless as you sit and stare at the houses in the distance all lit up and warm.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve gotten to know many of the homeless that live in and around our community who don\u2019t have the luxury of electricity and I\u2019ve prayed for a way to bring them some light, some hope.\u00a0God answers prayers.\u00a0One of my members just returned from a winter trip to California and was visiting his former Rotary Club and they\u2019ve come up with a lighting project to address those living without light.\u00a0He thought these lights might be something we could give out to our homeless population along with the other things we do, so he brought back several of them for me to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As luck would have it, later that very morning one of the homeless people we\u2019ve been helping came by for some assistance.\u00a0Pete and Jane (not their real names) live in an old motorhome that has no heat and is in much need of repair.\u00a0In any event, I asked him if he had any lights in the motorhome.\u00a0He said he had one battery-powered light, but it didn\u2019t last too long and he tried not to run the motor to save on gas.\u00a0I showed him one of the lights and his eyes literally lit up.\u00a0I turned it on and explained to him it was solar-powered and would last several hours without needing a charge.\u00a0He teared up and said it would be great to have one because he liked to read after Jane went to bed and this way, he could sit up front and not disturb her.\u00a0I gladly gave out our first light and then we talked about what else he needed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world and to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.\u00a0People come to our church, and hopefully yours, looking for help and it is heart-wrenching to hear their stories and feel as if there is nothing you can do to ease their pain.\u00a0Sometimes, just a little ray of light is all it takes to give them hope or, to at least let them know someone sees them and truly cares.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because there is so much darkness in the world, I don\u2019t think there has been a better time for us to be Christians and to let our light shine before men.\u00a0The Apostle John tells us in John 1:4,5 that in Him was life, and that life was the light of the world, and that the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.\u00a0If, during these times of despair and helplessness, people turn to us for help we must seize the opportunity to guide the lost and searching to the light and we, as the church in their community, is the best place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on these cool little lights, you can go to unitetolight.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Scott Rosekrans<\/strong> serves as pastor to the people of Community United Methodist Church in Port Hadlock, Washington.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Because there is so much darkness in the world, I don\u2019t think there has been a better time for us to be Christians and to let our light shine.” Port Hadlock Community UMC Pastor Scott Rosekrans shares how a little light can make a big difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[394],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-church-2"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Luke-Light.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5oU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20767,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764\/revisions\/20767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}