IT’S HARD TO BE RED IN A MULTICOLOURED WORLD

 

 

In recognition of the odd one out... aka...

     It's hard to be mostly red in a multicolored world...

 

I have a unique bulb on my string of outdoor Christmas lights. The lights on the string are meant to work together to light up the community, shifting as a unit from one colour to another. But one bulb, second from the left, is not quite like the others. It constantly tries very hard.  It really struggles to be like the other bulbs, but...

When every other bulb is blue, Unique Bulb takes too long to think about it. So while the others are changing from blue to purple, it is trying hard but only gets up a bit of colour before the others move on, changing to red. When it is finally mostly red and no doubt feeling quite successful, the others have all turned purple again. Consequently, much of the time it remains a red bulb on a purple string or a blank bulb on a blue string.  And so it goes, time after time. Except that every once in a while, Unique Bulb puts in a spectacular effort- it gets red first and glows redder longer than all the rest. But .... only for that moment and then it's back to trying to keep pace again. I suspect it's nearly exhausted from the effort.

I admire the fact that it keeps fighting but wouldn't be too surprised if it just gives up sometime soon and ends up watching from the sidelines, no doubt wishing it didn't have its particular disability. Wishing the others would accept it however odd or in whatever colour it was born to be, slowing down at times so they could all change colours together.

Sometimes someone needs a bit of recognition and inclusion or perhaps a reminder that in God’s sight we are all Precious and Unique Bulbs.