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    Catching Fireflies: Teaching Your Heart to See God's Light Everywhere
    Catching Fireflies: Teaching Your Heart to See God's Light Everywhere
    Catching Fireflies: Teaching Your Heart to See God's Light Everywhere
    Ebook161 pages20 hours

    Catching Fireflies: Teaching Your Heart to See God's Light Everywhere

    By Patsy Clairmont

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Looking for a little “light” reading with life-changing truth and ticklish humor? This book is for you. 

    Popular author and speaker Patsy Clairmont weaves stories and scripture between lasers, lighthouses, and lamps to illuminate the heart and enliven the spirit. Whether you’re bored with the routine, struggling through a crisis, or just ready for a good word, Patsy meets you there with vulnerability, inspiration, and an infectious grin.

    As a daily devotional or weekend read, Catching Fireflies will light up your day even as it brightens your smile.

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateJul 16, 2012
    ISBN9781418576066
    Author

    Patsy Clairmont

    Patsy Clairmont is a popular speaker, a coauthor of various Women of Faith devotionals, and the author of such best-selling books as "God Uses Cracked Pots" and "Sportin' a 'Tude." She and her husband live in Brighton, Michigan.

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      Book preview

      Catching Fireflies - Patsy Clairmont

      9781400202386_ePDF_0002_0019781400202386_ePDF_0004_004

      Catching Fireflies

      © 2009 by Patsy Clairmont

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Published in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

      Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

      Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

      Scriptures noted NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

      Scriptures noted KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

      An effort has been made to locate sources and obtain permission where necessary for the quotations used in this book. In the event of any unintentional omission, a modification will gladly be incorporated in future printings.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Clairmont, Patsy.

         Catching fireflies : teaching your heart to see God's light everywhere

      / Patsy Clairmont.

              p. cm.

         ISBN 978-1-4002-0238-6

        1. Christian women--Religious life. 2. Light--Religious

      aspects--Christianity. I. Title.

        BV4527.C5327 2009

        248.8'43--dc22

      2008044838

      Printed in the United States of America

      09 10 11 12 13 QW 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      9781400202386_ePDF_0006_002

      To a firefly of extraordinary brilliance . . .

      Ellie Lofaro

      contents

      one: In the Beginning

      two: Fireflies

      His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star.

      —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE SR.

      three: Morning Light

      The windows of my soul I throw wide open to the sun.

      —JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

      four: Christmas Lights

      Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in

      a conspiracy of love!

      —HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

      five: Laser Light

      I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

      —ABRAHAM LINCOLN

      six: Flashlight

      If children brighten up a home, it’s probably because

      they never turn off the lights.

      —UNKNOWN

      seven: Purse Light

      One disadvantage of being a hog is that at any

      moment some blundering fool may try to make

      a silk purse out of your wife’s ear.

      —J. B. MORTON

      eight: Lamplight

      Light is good from whatever lamp it shines.

      —UNKNOWN

      nine: Candlelight

      A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

      —JAMES KELLER

      ten: Headlights

      I was like a deer in the headlights. There are just some days

      when you and your partner aren’t clicking. For some reason,

      we had to fight through every element in a negative way.

      —GARRETT LUCASH

      eleven: Reading Light

      The road to knowledge begins with the turn of a page.

      —UNKNOWN

      twelve: Starlight

      There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining

      in order like a living hymn, written in light.

      —N. P. WILLIS

      thirteen: Exit Light

      As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather

      all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be

      distributed evenly among the flight attendants.

      Please do not leave children or spouses.

      —UNKNOWN

      fourteen: Streetlight

      Hello lamp-post, whatcha’ knowin’?

      —PAUL SIMON

      fifteen: Spotlight

      There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in

      the right direction.

      —WINSTON CHURCHILL

      sixteen: Lightbulb

      When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on

      the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle.

      I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

      —GEORGE CARLIN

      seventeen: Lighthouse

      We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we

      won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire

      cannons to call attention to their shining—they just shine.

      —DWIGHT L. MOODY

      eighteen: Let There Be Light

      one

      In the

      Beginning

      I’m a light girl. No, not low tonnage. I wish.

      What I love is illumination—morning sunrays sneaking around the corners of my window shades, encouraging me to rise up; the yellow glow on a firefly’s keister dancing in the distance; or lightning streaking across a night sky like an insistent exclamation point. If it lights up, I like it. With the exception of red bubbles on top of police cars beckoning me to chat. Quite honestly, I just don’t have the time.

      I’m sure my fascination with light-bearing objects is why I love the book of Genesis, especially the part where light was birthed.

      When God said, Let there be light, there was! But take note that He didn’t design the light holders —the sun, moon, and stars—until four days later. Have you ever considered that, during creation, light was bounding about willy-nilly until it was corralled into designated positions? That fascinates me. I wonder if it looked like an explosive aurora borealis.

      I would have loved a front row seat for that light show. I think.

      Then again, in Scripture, people responded by falling on their faces when they encountered a heavenly messenger, witnessed a miracle, or heard God’s voice. They had a compelling reason for responding that way, I’m sure. We humans derive a great deal of our security from what we know, and generally speaking, we’re not sturdy enough for the other world, full of its wondrously fierce mysteries.

      Remember when Moses climbed to the mountaintop and asked to see God? The Lord’s mercy covered Moses as He passed by because Moses wasn’t prepared for what he would have seen. Oh, he might have been desirous, curious, and even devotion-driven to look on the Lord, but God knew Moses wasn’t ready for such a startling encounter.

      Majesty, purity, and holiness, to name a few of God’s qualities, are piercing in their perfect state. Our hearts couldn’t take the jolt.

      Remember Jacob? He wrestled with an angel, and because of that encounter, he walked with a limp the rest of his life.

      When angels appeared to people, the heavenly beings greeted those mere mortals with the words, Fear not. They understood that fear would be our first, knee-knocking response.

      So taking into consideration that we wouldn’t have had the moxie to handle witnessing the first stirrings in the universe, let’s stretch our limited minds and try to imagine it. A time when there was no time (what must that be like?), just total darkness (now I’m scared), chaos (this feels familiar), and emptiness (I don’t do bottomless falls).

      Actually, reading that description—dark, chaotic, and empty—reminds me of last week, when my son’s visiting Jack Russell discovered our laundry basket full of clean clothes. He chewed the support out of my new underwire. I am of the personal belief that Jack Russells were fashioned from the spare parts of pogo sticks. No, I’m not bitter, just reflecting on how, perhaps, this Jack Russell’s interior must resemble creation before God brought order to it.

      Alas, I digress. Back to the invention of light.

      Let’s consider for a moment what happens when the universe’s scary dark is abruptly interrupted. At God’s command, light crashes through utter darkness, bursting forth as conqueror.

      Does that sound superhero-ish? Well, that’s my interpretation of how it might have happened. And whether light crashed onto the scene, sauntered in, or flowed like a river, we know this for sure: God spoke, and it was so! Which should be a strong reminder for us about the wallop God’s words carry.

      Recently I was thinking about the phrase, Let there be light, and it hit me anew that those are God’s first recorded words. I don’t know if that makes them more important or holier than anything else He said, but that reminder caused me to lean in and listen deeply because I don’t want to miss the impact of His proclamations.

      As I further explored Let there be light, I was reminded that not only does Scripture’s first book open with light, but the last book also closes with it. The theme throughout the Bible, from beginning to end, cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, is Jesus, the Light of the World.

      As a matter of fact, we could say that the Bible is bookended in light and a holy fire. For light is the symbol God has chosen to represent truth, and Jesus is the flame of our faith. Of course, divine insight is full of light, and Christ is that light; so anytime we understand something that’s true, something we never had grasped before, Jesus is all over it. Don’t you love that?

      I can become downright giddy when a fresh truth settles inside me. I want to shout from the rooftop, I get it! I get it! I finally get it!

      I’ve found in the beginning truth igniting. It sparks hope inside me, whether it’s the beginning of a grand new day, a new project, a new resolution, or a new understanding.

      I hope this book will offer you new understandings and thoughts that kindle your desire to seek God in fresh ways. Together we will explore different kinds of illumination that help us to find that path. I’ve been known to lose my way, and I’ve been ever so grateful to those who have come alongside me with their lanterns to shed some light on the direction to

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