A MOMENT BY THE LAKE

I step away from the campfire to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Looking around, the dark shapes of trees emerge against the blackness and boulders begin glowing like shadowy balloons against the dark earth.

Inching my right foot forward, I feel for the edge of the first granite step leading down to the inky blackness of the lake. When my toe finds solid footing, I transfer my full weight and lift my left foot to explore for the edge of the next step.

After four steps I stop to look around. As my pupils dilate, the distant shoreline becomes visible as a solid row of tree silhouettes above a charcoal band of sand, the sheet of wet, black lake broken only by a sparse scattering of rocks breaking the surface a few feet off the near shore.

With my eyes adjusted, I abandon the toe-touch method and walk forward, more confident of the steps before me. I take the last step and feel the soft sand of the beach give away under my foot. I walk to the edge of the water and stand motionless.

The trees are perfectly still and not even a whisper of breeze gives movement to the water. No ripples lap the shore at waters edge. I close my eyes and taste the fragrant pine needles that were knocked to the ground by this mornings thundershower. My nose is filled with the strong smell of damp sand and cool, lake water.

I open my eyes to the night. The stillness is overwhelming, the blackness enveloping. My senses become hyper sensitive, believing they are being deprived of any input or stimulation. In my peripheral vision, I see movement in the water and look quickly left, finding myself staring at a pinpoint of light in the middle of the lake.

As I watch the light dance on the dark water, I become aware of more lights appearing all across the surface of the lake. A haze of lights covers an area to my right and even more bright points are flung across the flat blackness to my left.

The lights slip and shimmer before my eyes, forming patterns and shapes. One shape holds my attention, the shape of a giant ladle. I look up quickly and see the seven stars of the Big Dipper hanging low in the sky.

Suddenly, I realize that the mysterious lights on the lake are stars reflected on a mirror of black glass. The first bright light that caught my attention was Polaris, the North Star, and that haze of lights hovering to my right are the millions and billions of stars and planets known as the Milky Way.

The stars spread before my feet and the heavens wrap around the earth overhead. The disorientation of vertigo takes hold as I can no longer differentiate where the starry sky stops and the reflected lights begin. I focus on the dark tree line to reorient myself, but immediately allow the silhouettes of the trees to fade from focus when I decide the optical illusion of earth and sky united is a more thrilling place to be.

How many times have I stood on the shore of this dark lake and never experienced this display? When have I ever seen such complete blackness of the night sky and such absolute stillness of the waters surface? I have never known a time for such perfect conditions to exist or ever imagined that I would be allowed this momentary glimpse through a window of heaven.

And a window of heaven is what it must be. A moment to see something so overwhelming as to cause my eyes to well with tears. An instant to experience something so profound as to make me stop breathing A split second to feel the perceptible weight of the glory of creation around me. To know, without conscious thought, that I am standing with God.

I am unaware of time passing but start to feel the damp chill of the night air setting into my arms and legs. I am reluctant to leave the spectacle of the stars, afraid if I turn from the lake the nearness of God will somehow evaporate behind me. I walk slowly up the beach toward the campfire, turning to take a final look before climbing the granite steps up the shore. I try to etch the amazing scene into my memory and the emotion into my heart, before my vision is corrupted by the brightness of the flames and glowing embers where my family sits roasting marshmallows.

I reclaim my lawn chair at the end of the fire pit and thoughtfully watch the kids ignite their marshmallows into flaming blue torches before blowing them out and slapping their pieces of sugared charcoal into a graham cracker and Hershey bar sandwich.

Staring into the embers, I think how much our lives need a starlit night by the lake. Our bright city nights, when the lights of life obscure our view of the stars, becomes normal. We no longer look for, or miss, the glory of the heavens in our hurried world. The stars are gone from our sight and we adapt to heavens without lights, life without the nearness of God.

But thankfully, just when one starless night runs into another and God seems as far away as a distant galaxy, an astounding heavenly display silently shouts the stars have not changed, God has not changed, He is here.

Psalm 19:1-4 says:

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their words to all the world.

How grateful I am to have heard the stars speak. All in a moment by the lake - an unexpected encounter with creation and the God who made it all.

Romans 1:20

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualitieshis eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Written by Jody Ward