One of my favorite things this time of year is to take a walk in the pumpkin patch. I love to look at all of their different shapes and sizes. I love watching my children and even my husband walking through the field looking for just the right ones for us to bring home.
And I must admit, I get a little sentimental when I open the pages of a well worn story book...one that I have been reading to my family every October for about 12 years. It is the story of a farmer and how that farmer takes each one of his unique pumpkins at harvest time and carefully washes it off. Then he cuts it open and cleans out all of the slimy mess inside, throwing it away to never be seen again. He tenderly carves a friendly face into his pumpkin before putting a candle deep down inside. When the farmer lights that candle, the pumpkin glows from the inside out letting all the neighbors know that the farmer has transformed an ordinary pumpkin into something beautiful.
This story has worked itself into a meaningful family tradition for me and hopefully for my children as well. Each year we have a little pumpkin party after visiting the pumpkin patch. We read our book, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable", by Lizz Curtis Higgs, eat pumpkin snacks and then carve our pumpkins. We talk about how God (the farmer) has picked us and how he cleans us up from the inside out and then puts his light inside of us so that we can shine like stars in a dark world.
I love what John says about Jesus here:
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:4
Thank you Jesus! Thank you for Harvest and for choosing us! Thank you for washing us and taking the sin from inside us and making us clean. Thank you for putting your life and light inside of us and giving us joy! May we be lights that shine a reflection of you to all that see us.
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