{"id":5668,"date":"2026-01-11T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/?p=5668"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:20:41","slug":"the-borrowed-light-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/the-borrowed-light-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"The Borrowed Light Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My grandad told me about the Borrowed Light Rule and I swear it&#8217;s been living rent-free in my head ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I see it in the woman laughing too hard at a beachside caf\u00e9, in the dad filming the same 5 second clip of his kid &#8211; again, in the neighbor who always waves, even when she&#8217;s running late, in the friend who sends you a voice note just to say &#8220;thinking of you.&#8221; All these little flickers &#8211; tiny, quiet moments that shouldn&#8217;t matter but do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>the Borrowed Light Rule\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joy doesn&#8217;t always come from within. Sometimes, we catch it from other people &#8211; like light bouncing off a mirror. Their joy lends us ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here&#8217;s the kicker &#8211; you don&#8217;t need a &#8220;big moment&#8221; to feel lit up. You just need to notice the glow around you. I used to chase &#8220;someday&#8221; feelings &#8211; waiting for the trip to start, waiting for the business to take off, waiting to deserve the good stuff. But I missed so many bright, ordinary moments while I was chasing the shiny ones. Now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I celebrate the little laugh, the slow mornings, the shared glances, the softness between milestones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You&#8217;re allowed to feel joy before the goal is reached. You&#8217;re allowed to collect tiny moments like treasure. You&#8217;re allowed to borrow someone else&#8217;s light until you find your own again. You&#8217;re allowed to let this be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just remember the Borrowed Light Rule &#8211; you&#8217;re already surrounded by more joy than you think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;<em>Selected<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My grandad told me about the Borrowed Light Rule and I swear it&#8217;s been living rent-free in my head ever since. I see it in the woman laughing too hard at a beachside caf\u00e9, in the dad filming the same 5 second clip of his kid &#8211; again, in the neighbor who always waves, even&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/the-borrowed-light-rule\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Borrowed Light Rule<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[178,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulletin","category-marks-messages","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5696,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668\/revisions\/5696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}