Welcome to The Light, your quiet-hour reflection.
In Purvis, Mississippi, the congregation of Coaltown Baptist Church was mid-verse of Amazing Grace when a tornado tore the roof from their fellowship hall. Everyone walked away unharmed. There is something ancient and arresting about that image — voices lifted in song while the storm does its worst, and somehow, grace holding.
From one kind of storm to another. The Christian broadcasting world is pausing to grieve Joni Lamb, co-founder and president of Daystar Television Network, who passed away at sixty-five after a prolonged struggle with illness. Those who knew her are calling her a general for the Kingdom — a life spent amplifying a message she believed in, until the very end.
And in Texas, a private Muslim gathering planned for a city-owned water park was canceled after Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold more than five hundred thousand dollars in state public safety funding. Whatever one believes about policy, the question underneath this moment is one worth sitting with — who feels at home in public space, and who must negotiate simply to gather.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
