When The Lights Come On At Church.

I am often alone in the building after the sun sets, especially in the winter, and it scares me. The elevator resets itself, I get startled, and then I start making up stories in my head. 

Maybe someone is going to come up to the main floor and hunt me down, and they are taking the elevator, the slow route, to prolong the terror.

I was in middle school, and my dad asked me to go into the adjoining church building to make sure the doors were locked. As I checked the door in the furthest corner of the building, a hand reached out, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me back towards a dark stairwell. I drove my elbow down into the hand that grabbed me. It was just a friend of mine who was playing a prank on me, but if my memory serves me correctly, I broke her wrist.

There aren’t many things more frightening than being in a church building alone after the lights go out. 
And there aren’t many things more hopeful than when the lights come on at church on Sunday morning. 

Bless you
Pastor.