The Midwinter Candle

*”Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes our deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light”* Albert Schweitzer 

At Youth Encounter, each December, all of the ministry teams gather together at a camp in Wisconsin for what we call “Midwinter Training”.  During this week, teams discuss tough issues they have been facing in their Fall tour, gather together in worship and fellowship with the other teams, and share their programs with the rest of the Youth Encounter family. From community time to snow tubing to meal times and everything in between- there are activities put in place to meet the needs of each teamer and where they may be at mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in the week leading up to their winter vacation.

One space that is available for teams during Midwinter Training is the prayer chapel. The prayer chapel is a quiet place where people can go to pray, reflect, and share their hearts with God. In the prayer chapel there is a journal for teamers to write, share their thoughts, and read about former teamers Midwinter experiences. In the prayer chapel there are different stations. There is a fireplace with a weeping wall, a cross for bandaging burdens, an area to be refreshed by God, and many other little areas that focus on some aspect of human life and faith. The room is lit solely by Christmas lights and warmed by a fireplace. It is the perfect place to go and spend some intentional time with God.

When I was on team last year, I didn’t spend any time in the prayer chapel. But this year, as a staff member, it was my job to make sure that the stations in the prayer chapel were stocked each day and that the prayer chapel was closed down each night. Each morning I would make sure the lights were lit, the supplies for each station were filled, and throughout the day I would go and see if anything needed to be replenished. I probably stopped by the prayer chapel at least five times each day between various activities. But I never stopped to spend time in prayer myself.

That was until our last night at camp…

On the last night of Midwinter Training after communion worship, everyone gathers together for Hygge time (a Danish word loosely translated to “hang out” time). It is often teamer’s favorite night of training because everyone plays games, drinks hot tea and hot chocolate, laughs and chats, and sings worship songs. It’s a great way to end the week and sends everyone home on a happy note. About twenty minutes into Hygge time, I decided to go and check on the prayer chapel for the last time before I started playing my favorite game for the rest of the night. As I walked into the prayer chapel, I was immediately overwhelmed by the table of lit tealight candles. One of the stations in the prayer chapel is a candlelit prayer station. People can come in and pray over a specific person and then light a tea candle for that person and allow it to burn until the candle dies. There were about forty candles on the table at the start of each day and it was my job to make sure to refill the candles each morning so that there were fresh candles for new prayers.

When I arrived at the prayer chapel that night there were about twenty candles lit on the table, the most I had seen all week. As I looked around the room, I got this overwhelming need to pray. Since coming off of team last August, I’d been struggling in my relationships, in finding forgiveness for a few people, in feeling God, and in figuring out where I fit in life. I hadn’t taken much time that week to pray or focus on myself. In fact, it was a great distraction from all of the things that I was currently hiding from. In the prayer chapel that night, I couldn’t hide anymore. I could feel God telling me that I needed to come to Him and that I needed to pray for two very special people in my life. The first person and I had been really struggling in our relationship. We stopped treating each other with the love and consideration that we had just a few months before. We began to ignore each other, hide from the problems that we were facing with each other, and gave off the impression that we no longer cared for the other. I had just a few days earlier contacted this person and shared how I wanted so badly for our relationship to grow again. I wasn’t sure whether or not they would ever respond back to what I had said. I didn’t expect them to, but I also didn’t want to give up on them and all they once meant to me. This had been a relationship I’d been praying for and through for a few weeks. And I felt, even though our relationship may be over, that I still needed to pray for this person.

I sat down on the couch in front of the table of candles and began to pray: that God would take care of them, that they were finding happiness and peace in their life, that they would realize how much they meant to me. And as I prayed, I tried to light a candle for them. But the candle just wouldn’t seem to light. And the more I tried, the more difficult it became. I tried everything. I pulled up on the wick of the candle (which clearly should have lit), I dumped out any wax that may have built up around the wick, I stopped trying to light it for a little while to let it dry out and then come back to it… And the candle still wouldn’t light. I began to feel very frustrated and could tell that I was on the verge of tears.

So, I moved on to the other person I wanted to pray for knowing I could come back to this one. I prayed for the second person and asked God to help me forgive them. I asked God to bless their lives and help them grow closer to Him. I prayed over our relationship and shared what I hoped could come of our relationship in the future. And then I went to light the candle for them. It lit right away. I barely needed to put a flame near it and the candle lit. I was almost taken aback with how quickly it lit and how bright it shined amongst the other candles. I know I smiled a little in that moment.

And then, I went back to my first candle. I refused to grab a new or different candle and light it instead of the first candle. I felt as if grabbing a new candle would show that I was giving up on this person and didn’t believe their flame could be relit. I tried for a few more minutes to light the candle, but it still wouldn’t light. At this point, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I could feel the tears begin to run down my cheeks as I tried hard not to cry. For the first time in weeks, I allowed myself to cry for this person, for myself, and for our relationship. In the solitude of the prayer chapel, I verbally let God hear what was in my heart. I cried to Him. I yelled at Him. I shared with Him my fears, my hopes, and my uncertainty. And when I was done, I placed my unlit candle in the middle of the twenty or so other lit candles and allowed their light to illuminate my candle.

I remember leaving the prayer chapel a few minutes later feeling overwhelmed, confused, and a little sad. Why hadn’t I been able to light this candle when it had all of the resources to light? There was no reason that my candle shouldn’t have lit. It was exactly the same as all the other candles that did light. What did my candle or (maybe even) I lack? Why couldn’t I make this one candle spark a flame when I was so desperate to ignite it? Why did everyone else’s candles light and not mine?

I tried to figure it out in the following days and map out all the possible answers to what my unlit candle meant. Did the fact that the candle didn’t light mean I should give up on this person? Did it mean I should stop trying and that their flame couldn’t be lit by me anymore like it had before? Did it mean that they had strayed from God? Did it mean I was supposed to stop praying for them or stop trying to be in their life? Or was God telling me that I’d been doing enough and that my constant prayers for this person were already heard? Or that it wasn’t my job to light their candle anymore? Or that He was taking care of it and didn’t require my help?

I wish I knew the answer. Or could say that God spoke loud and clear to me the very next day and all is well with this person and our relationship is back to the way that it was. But that’s not true.  I’m still very much in the midst of figuring out what this relationship will become in the future, if anything. I truly thought I would never hear from this person again and that I no longer mattered to them. As I left the prayer chapel that night I asked God to help me let go of this person for good if they were not going to be a part of my life any longer and that He would give me the strength to not contact them again unless they contacted me first. I started to feel peaceful about this request and decision a few days later. The Monday after my midwinter candle experience, as I got ready for the day, I thanked God for giving me peace in knowing that I had done all I could to fix this relationship and that all I can do is control myself. And I prayed one more time that God would continue to give me peace because I felt this person would never reach out to me. No more than one hour later, this person contacted me after almost three weeks. I am still unsure of what my midwinter candle experience means but I know I’ve learned a lot through this experience and those surrounding it.

I tend to be someone who relies only on myself and often assume people will fail to follow through. In fact, I often expect people to disappoint me. And when I start to see this happen, I tend to harden my heart rather quickly towards that person and simply move on. But through this, I’ve seen God work in wonderful ways, and not in my time but in His time. I would have loved to solve my relationship trouble with this person back in October and either move past them or work on our relationship. There were times where I almost picked up the phone and either yelled at them out of anger or cried to them out of desperation, but it seemed like every time I prayed I kept getting this overwhelming sense to wait and not harden my heart. So, I choose to hold my head high for another day, pray some more, and wait. And even though I still have no idea what any of this means, I feel God is teaching me to trust. To wait. To be patient. To not give up too quickly. To be open to second chances. To do all that I can before I ever give up. And, in times where I can’t light my candle, to put it in the midst of those that do shine and realize that I don’t have to do any of it alone.