“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:16)
As I crunched along the gravel path from the clinic to my apartment this evening, the black expanse of grass runway to my right was alive with the dancing luminescence of hundreds of fireflies. Their pin pricks of light blinked mesmerizingly, each one turning off a tiny spot of darkness.
I think of the admonition of Jesus to his disciples.
“Light up your world,” He told them. “Turn off the darkness of evil and despair with the bright light of God’s love shining through your good works. That’s how you will bring glory to your Heavenly Father.”
My mind flits to the hours I have spent today with Delmis, one of our nurses whom I met years ago when she was a student in the Honduran Bible Institute. I remember the smile that lit her face then as she knelt in the grass beside the stone walkway, weeding the flower bed. No fretting about being assigned to a mundane task! The joy of Jesus radiated from her.
Fast forward to today, and the same attitude was still evident. From the little boy needing something washed out of his ear; to the teenage couple expecting their first child, eyes glued to the ultrasound screen in fascination as Delmis pointed out their baby’s beating heart; to the elderly man here for the periodic Foley catheter change he is enduring for the umpteenth time over the past three years, she unfailingly demonstrated the spirit of love and compassion that makes working in our clinic not merely a nursing job but a multiple-times-a-day ministry opportunity.
“Hermana Ana, do you think you can go with me after work to visit a new mother in the neighborhood? She was terribly anemic with her second pregnancy, and then hemorrhaged on top of that right after I delivered her baby. I would like to take her some vitamins with iron and talk to her again about Jesus while we’re there.”
Of course, I did. And as I listened to her use Jesus’ parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins to gently admonish her politely receptive hostess to be ready for Christ’s coming, I once again saw His love overflowing. Which is why the fireflies cavorting over the runway were a perfect reminder of Delmis.
They…and she…were merely doing what they were created to do: bring glory to their Heavenly Creator.