Red light / green light

Oh the many different (yet oddly similar) games that were played as a child with cousins and neighborhood friends.

• No bears are out tonight
  (played after sunset)
• Sidewalk Tag
• TV Tag
• Red light / green light
• Red rover, red rover
• Simon says
• Mother may I

Long lazy summer days filled with little to no responsibilities, and lots of fun! Don’t even know if children today play these games anymore. Heck, I’m not certain if people outside my cadre of childhood friends know much about some of these games.

Times change, and so do people. As much as I enjoyed playing these games for hours on end as a child - they don’t hold the same level of enticement now as an adult. But the joyful memories associated with them will live on for many years yet to come.

Recently I have been thinking about the game of Red Light / Green Light.

The objective of this game is to make it from one end of the playing field (aka: the neighbor’s lawn) to the other, and tag the one child who is the “traffic light”. Movement of any kind is not allowed on a red light... when the traffic light child is facing the others. Punishment for movement is to be sent back to the starting line. Only on a green light... when the traffic light child has their back turned to the others... is movement allowed. They want to catch you moving, and will often turn quickly back and forth - shouting “Red Light” or “Green Light” as they turn.

There is total childlike simplicity found in the rules of the game - only two commands: stop or go. Why does such plainness seem to disappear with adulthood? Now I only see a red or green light at street intersections or freeway on-ramps - and not on a warm summer evening filled with children’s laughter.

Viewing life through my spiritual eyes... red lights are those times when I feel restrained from taking certain life paths or making decisions. This restraint might come as a prompting by the Spirit of the Lord directing me away from danger. But I also know it can be my own fears and depression’s distorted thoughts that hold me back.

Green lights are when I receive a “go ahead” prompting that the route chosen is a good one. These are much more difficult for me to discern or feel, as depression creates a false sense of living in a spiritual wasteland. It is a physical and mental illness which can forcefully impact one’s perceptions. Feeling unworthy and wrongly thinking I have been abandoned by God, I blame myself for lacking the necessary faith - easily becoming overwhelmed and incapable of seeing the green lights.

And lest we forget, there are also yellow lights; where I feel neither restrained nor necessarily prompted to move forward. It could mean to “proceed with caution” - or that any of the choices would be okay, for God has given man the agency to choose for ourselves. I often find that I live in a fairly perpetual red and yellow light world - neither really proceeding forward, nor coming to a full stop.

Oh, and what about the red lights that can suddenly turn green? Or those green lights that abruptly turn red? The easiness of my childhood understanding of the game has become much more difficult to navigate - and I don’t always understand the rules of this adult version.

Looking back over the years, I do not doubt the Savior has been at my side through this whole journey - through my whole life. In retrospect I clearly see the guidance that has been given when needed - and how I have been strengthened to deal with burdens placed on my shoulders. The challenge is to learn how to recognize in the present - red, green and even yellow light promptings of the Spirit; especially when they are muted or hidden by depression’s darkness. And to be more accepting of the love and guidance from God that has always been there, for He will never forsake His children. This is My Faith!!