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Church of the Lighted Lamps

While my parents were active pastors for Sugar Creek Church of the Brethren, Tunker, Indiana, I was a teenager bursting with energy. My favorite holiday tradition at the church was the Christmas Eve candlelight service. Each person present was represented with a lit candle. As the years progressed, the small sanctuary became filled with light as attendance increased.

 
ClarEllen Fugate read a story each year titled Church of the Lighted Lamps. The message was parallel to what we were doing each Christmas Eve, lighting a candle representing our presence. Years later when I needed a story for a sacred storytelling concert, I asked ClarEllen if she would loan me a copy. As I read the story she sent me, I realized the story I was reading was different! My mind had reshaped the story and had changed the ending completely. Which story should I tell? I decided to make the story my own, a storyteller’s right! 
 
The Church of the Lighted Lamps (abridged)
A woman goes to Europe after the war to follow her husband’s footsteps hoping to find comfort in seeing what he saw before she lost him forever. Traveling up a narrow cobblestone road, she discovers people entering a small chapel lighting oil lamps. The growth of the warm glow mesmerizes the woman. 
 
Another woman running late explains the tradition of the church. Despite electricity coming to the town, the church remains lit by lamps so each person’s presence is needed and missed when not in attendance. Rarely do any members miss and blessed are those who share their light. 
 
The woman did remain basking in the glow of the lit lamps finding comfort in a most unlikely place.
 
May you have a blessed holiday season bringing light to those around you and finding comfort in a most unlikely place.