Star-Gaze

 Darkness has fallen in full effect as I finish the last midnight things before heading to bed. It's been a full day, and I am ready for my head to hit the pillow. In another room of the house, I hear a family member comment about the unusually bright star seen out the window. Could be a planet or something, we conclude. Shortly afterwards, they decide to go out to the front porch and take a quick peak at the night sky. Perhaps other stars are visible on this clear, cold evening. 

Weeks upon weeks of rain and clouds have kept the skies shrouded in grey, leaving us with little chance to see the glistening heavens. As winter's chill is setting in and frost is kissing the ever-hardening ground, the clearer weather is returning and the stars just might be finally able to be seen. Days ago, dozens of photos went up from locals around the area as the Northern Aurora was on grand display. Seems the skies have been showing off of late. From inside, I hear the family member softly call for me to come out and join them on the porch. They swear they've never seen stars like this. 

I'm hesitant to leave the warmth of the house and tip-toe out into the cold, but I convince myself a couple minutes is worth it. A flashlight helps me watch my step. Peering out from under the worn eaves of the porch, I am stunned. It's as if the whole darkness has been lit up with diamonds everywhere. My breath is taken away. 

If you want to see the holiest things, you have to leave the comfort of what you want. The best gifts always ask a little pain of you in order to see them for what they truly are.

Earlier in the day, I saw a pastor give a word about how the greatest miracles happen in the middle. God doesn't often move right in the beginning, nor does He wait all the way until the end. He usually does His greatest work in the in-between. The times when you feel like you're stuck with nowhere to go. The times when it seems like you're in the thick of it and there are no answers, no solutions. The times when you watch possibilities running out and it appears a miracle will not happen. Those are the exact times when God is providentially setting up His biggest moves in your life. The moves that shape you, change you. 

A shiver runs down my body as I feel the cold starting to catch up with me the longer I stand outside. I tell the family member I'm going to go grab a coat... because it's just too magical, too holy to not keep looking. Almost as if the eyes don't know where to gaze to take it all in. This, I tell myself, is the majesty of God. 

A tear slips out of my eye as I'm caught up in awe at the Creator's touch. There is beauty everywhere and I'm here as it's witness. The words from Psalm 8 come to mind that "when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them?" and I realize that the same Shepherd-King who wrote these words and thought these thoughts while tending sheep stared at this same sky, talked to this same God. 

And now it suddenly hits me  as I laugh out loud at the magnificence of it all: we often consider the darkness to be our own version of "the middle" - that transition point between day and day, the in-between that breaks up all our collective hours and here, while gazing at this broad expanse on this chilly, Arctic night, I can't help but see the handiwork of God. And it makes me wonder what life would look like if I would start to open my eyes to what He is doing in the middle. If physical darkness is capable of holding so much grandeur, what spiritual sight might I gain through the in-between phases of the soul? 

After all, some of God's greatest deliverances that Scripture recounts happened in the middle: the three men in the furnace didn't see God prior to walking into the fiery-heat - He joined them while they were still in it. The Israelites weren't delivered from the chasing Egyptians before they went through the Red Sea - but while they were yet crossing over as they turned to watch the waters swallow up their enemies. And God didn't send His Son in the visibility of day to be born in human form but rather, under the cover of darkness while the town of Bethlehem slept. 

And here, in a driveway far up North, I'm comforted that God is doing work in my own in-betweens. That the holiness I feel here is attainable even in the moments of life when it feels like hope has left the room... like the lights have gone out forever. I've seen enough heartache to know this is true: that God meets you in the midst and stays with you through it all and who are we to question it when all of history proves that it's fact! 

Stars led Wise Men to seek His dwelling place, and stars still lead us to the dwelling place of God today. The heavens cause us to search out the face of our Maker and ask Him, who are we that you care for us? 

Eyes keep on darting from shining-star to shining-star as something deep within me wants to shout, Glory! And just then, I notice a small point of light on the move... and I follow it as it grows in brightness and then suddenly just goes out. I can't believe it - I think I've just seen my first shooting star! Almost like God wants to cap off this moment with an extra flourish. 

A point of light on the move... 

Yes... this is how a heart looks for hope when hope seems absent: you look for the ways even the slightest glimpse of light is moving because God is always moving - moving toward you and not away from you, moving on your behalf for your saving and His glory. Never stopping. 

A part of me wants to just sit out here in this expanse forever, but my ever-chilling body tells me otherwise. So I head back inside for good. Take off my coat and keep on heading to the comfort of my warm bed. But I'm not regretful in any way for saying yes to what I just witnessed. And I realize that's the path to finding God in all hard things - to keep on saying yes. To keep leaving your known and stepping into the unknown and taking His hand all the way. To keep looking up when the world tells you to look around. To remind yourself that Heaven rules - that God rules. All-wise, all-loving, all-capable. The One who holds the starry universe also holds us and we can know that even the cries of a broken heart are heard and known and seen and loved and that the loneliness and confusion of the middle is exactly where we can expect God to show up. And that's why we must stay in the story with Him. 

Enter in all our winter days and let the ice run deep and the winds chill and the snow blow and each painful thing threaten to freeze us all right to the bone. Let the darkness hang low and the light be dim and just remember through it all, we are safe with Him.