The Light Of The World

 Once upon a time a little candle stood in a room filled with other

 candles, most of them much larger and much more beautiful than she

 was. Some were ornate and some were rather simple, like herself. Some

 were white, some were blue, some were pink, some were green. She had

 no idea why she was there, and the other candles made her feel rather

 small and insignificant.

 When the sun went down and the room began to get dark, she noticed a

 large man walking toward her with a ball of fire on a stick. She

 suddenly realized that the man was going to set her on fire. "No,

 no!!" she cried, "Aaaaagghhh! Don't burn me, please!" But she knew

 that she could not be heard and prepared for the pain that would

 surely follow.

 To her surprise, the room filled with light. She wondered where it

 came from since the man had extinguished his fire stick. To her

 delight, she realized that the light came from herself.

 Then the man struck another fire stick and, one by one, lit the other

 candles in the room. Each one gave out the same light that she did.

 During the next few hours, she noticed that, slowly, her wax began to

 flow. She became aware that she would soon die. With this realization

 came a sense of why she had been created. "Perhaps my purpose on earth

 is to give out light until I die," she mused. And that's exactly what

 she did.

 God created you and I to produce light in a dark world. Like that

 little candle, we all can produce the same amount of light, no matter

 how small we are or what color we might be. But we can't produce light

 until we receive it from an outside source. That source is Jesus

 Christ, the light of the world.