This Little Light of Mine.

A classic children's song. I remember loving this song as a child for a couple of reasons. First, any song about light had a special meaning to me. Second, I loved the actions in the song.

If you looked back into my childhood, you would find a little girl filled with great extremes. There is a children's poem that described my temperament very well.

There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good, she was very very good
But when she was bad she was horrid.  

Because of this, my father would often ask me if I was going to be thunder or sunshine. And at a very young age, his nickname for me became "My Little Sunshine." It's the only real nickname that has ever stuck for me as I've always despised "Hannah Banana," and nothing else ever really stuck. This nickname then led to a special birthday dessert called "Sunshine Pie." Of course when my father told me shortly before my 5th birthday he was going to make me sunshine pie, I imagined a pie decorated with a smiling sun on top. In reality it was a unique combination of pudding, whipped cream, and peanut butter crumbles. And then my father began to sing the song "You are my Sunshine," to me.

And thus in my little kid mind pretty much anything to do with sunshine or light was about me in some way. Along with This Little Light of Mine, I also loved the song Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. And of course no children's song can go wrong when they add actions like waving a finger for your little light, hiding it under a bushel, and blowing it out.

To bring some current relevance to this song, however, I should mention the lyrics and even the actions of this song have been on my mind because I have begun to sing this song to my little boys. Mini Me(older son) LOVES singing songs with me, and so we sang this song together before bed last night along with Little One(younger son). Mini Me loved waving his finger around, and Little One loved blowing when we sang "won't let Satan blow it out."

But as we sang, I was realizing how relevant to my own life the lyrics of this song are:

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. 
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. 
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. 

Hide it under a bushel? No! I'm going to let it shine. 
Hide it under a bushel? No! I'm going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I'm going to let it shine.
Let it shine, let is shine, let it shine. 

Won't let Satan blow it out! I'm going to let it shine. 
Won't let Satan blow it out! I'm going to let it shine. 
Won't let Satan blow it out! I'm going to let it shine. 
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. 

How easy it is to forget such simple truths that even children understand. It is so easy to get caught up in the humdrum of life, that we often forget we even have a light, let alone work on letting it shine. Are we living a life that is letting it shine even to our children, our husbands, our coworkers, or that worn out cashier we run into at Walmart? We are told in Matthew to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds. And praise your father in Heaven." -Matthew 5:16

And how about a bushel? Is our light out for all to see? Or is it awkward and hard to show and hidden under a bushel of our insecurities? Can we boldly say as we venture out into the world that "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of salvation to all who believe." -Romans 1:16 For me this is a hard thing to do at work, for fear of getting in trouble with my boss, and my family really needs the extra income I bring in right now. (that fear is probably a little dramatized...or more than a little). What bushel do you struggle with taking off of your light?

And then the last verse was the one that was really fitting, in the mind of a child type way, to my life right now. Over the past month I have watched Satan send every minion he has to try and blow out the lights of my family. He has attacked my light, my husband's light, and even tried to snuff out the amount of faith that has begun to grow in Mini Me's heart. In fact, the more I prayed about it, the more I realized recently that Satan had been puffing at our light's for quite a while. Because I had forgotten that "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." -Ephesians 6:12. And the only way I have found to keep this from happening is to go to my War Room and fall on my knees and do battle.

It is amazing what we can learn from the mind of a child. Children often have a better understanding of the concepts found in this song than we do. This is something that humbled me, and it has also kept me humming this song all day.