If I’m being honest with you, I have to tell you that I’ve been feeling a bit melancholy lately. The time change and shorter days always seem to do it to me. When it gets dark so early I find it difficult to do much of anything other than stay home after dinner and read, or write, or try to accomplish things around the house.

One thing that gets me out of my funk is to work on a project or do something creative. It always seems to bring some light and life into a too early dark evening.

After dinner tonight I decided I needed to do just that. I went to work on our family’s sometimes annual Christmas card (Do you send out cards every year?). We had a picture taken last month. So I got on iPhoto, began to work, placed the picture into a card template, and started to think about text I could place into it…and before I knew it I was energized and excited about what I was doing.

It’s interesting to me that we celebrate Christmas in North America very near the day that is shortest and darkest. It is a stark reminder that this dark world desperately needs the One who called Himself the Light of the world. The Creative Creator God came up with an innovative way to deal with the world’s sin-fed darkness. In history’s most sacrificially imaginative act, He sent His only-begotten Son to bring color, life, light, and salvation into a world who’s days had been dimmed and shortened by iniquity.

As I worked on our Christmas card, I was energized even more when I found the following passage in The Message:

Wilderness and desert will sing joyously, the badlands will celebrate and flower — Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom, a symphony of song and color. (Isaiah 35:1)

“A symphony of song and color” is exactly what I need at this time of year. That’s what my God gives me as He inspires me to and through creativity. Into the midst of darkness — spiritual, emotional, or physical — He delivers color, light, life.

Ask. He will provide.

How do you shake off the darkness and find the light at this time of year?