We sat, pants soaked through, on a rain washed driveway at 9:30 pm, looking at the stars and talking about Jesus.

The girl who can’t stand the feel of a wet towel and the dad who sleeps in a recliner to help his back hurt less. On a driveway that I probably wouldn’t have sat on in broad daylight even if it was perfectly dry.

And oh, it was the most enchanted evening. The way the word enchanted used to be used: it held a deeper, beautiful meaning. It was full of wonder.

Hello, dear readers. Happy Autumn. ❤️ I have story for you, a true story, as the hearts of all the best ones are.

After a day in which I was miserably grumpy, stressed, and an annoying mix of tired and restless, my dad called me out onto the porch. It had rained all day but by then the storm had blown away, chased by the wind that now played in the trees.

I looked up.

Dim clouds, painted across the night sky, and stars among, around and behind them.

The wet porch beneath our feet.

“Oh.”

The sky, clothed in a after-storm garb of clouds and stars, told me, as clear as day, to be still and know.

Dad called it the still small voice of the aurora borealis. And it really was. The way the clouds stretched across the sky in hazy patterns was the closest thing to the Northern Lights I have ever seen. It was good. No less good than the famed Northern Lights, and no more. It was its own kind of beautiful, pregnant with the quiet enchantment of God.

And after standing and craning our necks to stare at the beauty, we finally set down on the wet ground to continue our conversation in hushed voices. Suddenly things like wet pajama pants didn’t matter anymore.

As I sat there, talking about my struggles at school, about following Jesus, and about C.S. Lewis and the early church who believed that the whole earth was always pointing to God, I felt like the night around me was awake with wonder. The wind in the trees was something special and sent by God. The smell of the rain on the ground was magical. The stars were actively defying the darkness and singing to the Creator who knows them by name.

But maybe it wasn’t the night that was awake. Maybe it was just me. Touched by wonder, awakened to the presence of God that is always there… behind the loudness of the world.

My soul was lifted up in a way it hasn’t been in a really long time. I couldn’t take my eyes off the stars.

A gust of wind blew over my hair, caressing my face, and tears sprang up behind my eyes. When I was younger, I remember feeling so close to God as I wandered through my backyard in the mountains with only the great blue sky and the whispering trees around me. The wind filled me with joy that burst out in psalms to God. But that exact feeling is few and far between anymore. One of the most important things God taught me was that He is not a feeling. God’s presence does not depend on my feelings. Praise the Lord, because if it did, I’d be in big trouble. But the other night, when that wind blew on me, it reached straight to my heart.

Since that night I have gone back to school. I have had moments of being numb and weary, distracted, discontent… human. Mundane and hard and happy moments. But wonder has touched me. And it has not left me the same.

Just like Jesus has touched me. And He changed everything.

So, I want to remember to wonder. To let my heart be open and awake to all the magic around me. To the whispers of God’s love and goodness and the reflection of a world where Light reigns, where humanity is completely fulfilled in communion with the one their souls were made for, where all will be well.

I want to remember

When the mundane struggles wear me out, to wonder.

When I wish I did not live in a world so sad, to wonder.

When I can’t see past my own sin and grumbling, to wonder.

Friends, He is here.

Sometimes, we may seem to pray without answer. But if we seek Him, if we truly seek Him with all our hearts, He never fails and never will fail to be found. He has promised. The One who set the stars in place, whose understanding is inscrutable, who paints the sky with a sunset every evening, who descended from His high and holy place to take the form of a servant and to bear all our guilt and ugly sin and despair on a Roman cross. Who rose again. Who even now, at this very second, sits in heaven interceding for us. He is faithful who has promised.

So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.

Hosea 6:3