Do you remember last year when I introduced my book, I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter? It’s mid-September and time to remind people who live in the northern hemisphere to reconsider that book. Although it is still much warmer than normal here in North Carolina in mid-September, I don’t want fall and winter to sneak up on you.

I wrote the book from my own experience. I don’t just dislike cold weather, I dread autumn and winter. That’s half the year! What a waste of my time and energy! It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I thought it only affected people in the cold, but I have read that some people experience this in the spring and summer.

When I was given my diagnosis, the physician’s assistant urged me to get out in the bright sunshine every morning. Since I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, that simple-sounding recommendation continues to be a challenge for me. When you don’t sleep well (or at all) at night, and you wake up every morning feeling worse than you did when you went to bed – even if you got a few hours of sleep — early mornings are not an enjoyable time of the day.

It was one morning as I walked that I kept repeating to myself, “I need the light. I need the light. I need the light.” It was perhaps the fifth time I said those words that I realized that the short sentence had a double meaning.

I need light to help me cope with SAD, but I need The Light – Jesus Christ – to help me cope with all facets of my life. That is why “The” is capitalized in the book’s title.

Each weekly devotional looks at a different passage in the Bible that references light or The Light. I quote five versions of the Bible in each devotional and I draw on several other books and Bible commentaries in my comments about each passage. Each week includes a suggested activity and a recipe for a comfort food.

People have commented that they like the conversational style in which the devotionals are written. That pleases me because that’s the comfortable and familiar manner in which I hoped to share my thoughts.

I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter is available in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC. It is also available from Amazon in paperback athttps://www.amazon.com/Light-Weekly-Devotionals-Through-Winter/dp/B0FMNCDFBT/ and e-book at https://www.amazon.com/Light-Weekly-Devotionals-Through-Winter-ebook/dp/B0FN9S27YW/.

I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary is available only in paperback at Second Look Books and from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Need-Light-Companion-Journal-Diary/dp/B0FRKRM9KJ/.

These are books that you can read again every year and get something new out of them. I hope you or someone you know who does not thrive in cold weather will find these books helpful.

Janet