She's only seven years old. The lone survivor of a plane crash that killed her parents, her sister, and her cousin.
The sheriff said "she literally fell out of the sky into a dark hole." He called her survival "a miracle."
This "miracle" survivor somehow crawled out of the upside-down wreckage of her dad's plane. Dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt. Shoeless. Through brambles and underbrush, this "remarkable" young girl navigated two embankments, a hill, and a creek bed in the dark.
And then the light. Actually, a single security light on a house. When she knocked on that door, a kind, grandfatherly man brought her inside.
She was safe.
One report said, "He thinks his security light may have been a beacon." A beacon for a little girl who has lost so much. But, thank God, she's alive.
And, for me, a trigger to get me thinking.
About who I need to be this new year. For people who've lost so much. Who feel alone. Whose world has suddenly crashed. Who need someone to be a light - a "beacon" - in an otherwise dark night.
Actually, that is what my Jesus said I should be as His follower. "You are the light of the world," He said. "Let your light shine" (Matthew 5:14, 16).
I've been thinking what it means for me to be that light for people in my personal world.
It means being one person they know who is all about their need, not my own. Who has time to listen. Who doesn't just ask the obligatory "How you doin'?" But who asks the second and third question to see if their obligatory "fine" is really how they're doing.
Being a light means being the one who refuses to hear or speak trash talk about anyone. Who protects a person's name when they're not in the room. Who builds a person up and never tears them down. Who says, "Thanks." And "I'm sorry." And "I was wrong."
It's always treating people "with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). Not "turning off the light" by making them feel condemned or put down.
The "light" is the person who remembers a person's birthday, who checks on them when they're sick, who's at the hospital, the wedding, the funeral. Who drops what I'm doing when they're hurting. Who offers to pray with - not just for - them when God is needed so much.
So I ask myself: do people around me see me as "safe"? The "go-to" person when it's dark and cold and lonely? Have I so lived that when they hit a wall, they'll think of me as a place to turn?
The light on the porch when they're feeling lost.
I can be that for one reason. Jesus has been that for me. As a dad who didn't know what to do. When there was no money. In the cold chill of the cemetery.
When I was spiritually lost with no hope of heaven, because of running my life instead of God running it. I found one beacon in the storm - a cross and an empty tomb.
Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). He's kept that promise for me. Every time.
Someone in my personal world is wandering in the dark today.
I pray they've seen the Light in me. So I can help them find Home.