The recent pandemic brought back childhood memories for me. When we were children, January through March or April was “childhood diseases” season. It was the time measles, mumps, chicken pox and of course flu reared their ugly heads. Mothers everywhere took means to stop the dreaded diseases from entering their homes. But once the dreaded diseases arrived they would go through a whole classroom or even a school.

My poor brother was six years younger than me and I seemed to bring those dreaded sicknesses home to him. It bothered me so much but Mother would always say we wouldn’t need to worry about him being sick when he finally went to school. (I still felt awful about it.) I remember when Zan caught the mumps from me. He was just a toddler. Bless his little heart. He would run through the house holding both sides of his face so it wouldn’t hurt when he ran.

After a bout with one thing or another, Mother would bring out the Clorox. Every possible surface was washed down, bed clothes washed in it. Dishes washed in Clorox and rinsed thoroughly. Floors scrubbed. Nothing was safe from the Clorox bottle.

But the mothers and grandmothers of that era did something else. All blankets, pillows, rugs, and anything else they could haul out the door, went into the sunshine. They knew that a day in the sun would kill any germs still hiding.

When the clothes came in from the clothes line after being washed in Clorox, they smelled so fresh and clean. The pillows and other articles would come inside after a day in the sun smelling fresh too. The sunshine would have accomplished its work. Those ugly evil germs died in the light of the sun.

Isn’t that so precious? Those things that can make us “sick”, or even destroy us, cannot survive in the light of the Son. We can walk in the light confidently. As we do, the light of His Word can shine on the dark places of our life. As that sin is exposed to the light, confessed, we are made clean.

Those things that would seek to destroy us, cannot. We walk in the light. Confidently.