"By my late teenage years, I had long since stopped begging to light the Hanukkah candles. I had lost all sign of light."

Larissa Kaye Batten (llbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.  

When I was a child, my mother asked her children the same question every Hanukkah.

"Who wants to light the candles?" she asked each year. "You can take turns. Who wants to light the candles first?"

"I do! I do!" my brother and I cried.

But by my late teenage years, I had long since stopped begging to light the Hanukkah candles. I had lost all sign of light.

I was drinking too much, eating too little, eating too much. I had lost my purpose in life. Life had lost its meaning, its light. I clung onto the darkness.

"Who wants to light the candles?" my mother asked each year.

Silence. My infamous sneer.

Hanukkah was merely a holiday to squeeze between my drinking. A time for presents. A time to return gifts rather than thank God and my parents for them.

Christmas was no better. A day for presents. Who cared about Jesus. Who was Jesus anyway?

The rest of the world was caught up in presents and decorations. I was caught up in drinking and darkness.

When I hit a bottom, a light began to infiltrate my spirit that is ever widening, ever brighter, ever beckoning, ever embracing.

Maybe the light was present all along. But I was not present enough to recognize it.

When the light shined, I turned in a direction I did not know existed. I began to see life from a perspective I had never known.

I no longer stumbled drunkenly in the dark.

I began to walk in the light of a God and his grace that were to change my life forever.

Slowly, so slowly, I developed a sense of purpose. The world around me developed a purpose, too.

I started to see life through the eyes of light rather than the eyes of darkness.

The holidays took on new meaning.

I remembered what my mother taught me so long ago. The Jewish people did not have enough oil to light their candles. But God found them enough oil for eight days – and so they carried on.

Then I remembered what I had learned about Christmas. About Jesus. About the light of God coming into the world.

In the sobriety of my new life, I let my face and life shine with my newfound light.

When the holidays came around, I shopped for my loved ones to buy them presents. But I never found in the stores the gift I was truly meant to give – the gift of light, the gift of love. The light of love. The light God had given me – not to keep, but to shine.

While the world around me lit its Menorahs and Christmas trees for the season’s holidays of light, I realized I wanted to light candles of my own.

"Who wants to light the candles?" my mother asked.

This time around, I wanted to light candles in a way I had never lit them before.

I wanted to be the light in someone else’s life. I wanted to carry light to my fellows. I wanted to pass on God’s gift of light. I wanted to shine with his love. I wanted to shine with his light.

"Give me that," I told an elderly lady recently, snatching her electric bill out of her hand.

She had just finished sobbing to me that the electricity in her beaten down trailer would be turned off in days because she couldn’t pay the bill at the time.

"Merry Christmas from me and my husband," I said. "We’ll help you to keep your lights on."

At the time, I didn’t realize the significance of that event. But now I see it: I was asking God if I could help light his candles this year.

I do not have a Menorah in my house this holiday season. Nor do I have a Christmas tree. I have not bought presents for my loved ones.

Instead, this year, my husband and I will give of our hearts to those in need – in the name of the ones we love.

This season, by God’s grace, I will do my best to carry the light.

A wise man once said, "You can’t keep it unless you give it away."

If I truly want to hold onto the light, I must help to carry it on.

Amen.

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