From Northern Lights to Southern Stars

Have you ever seen the northern lights?

Northern lights fascinate me to the point of an almost obsession. I've even gotten up in the middle of the night to see if they've come out that night. The mostly green, but ranging in colour from yellow to pink to blue, lights dance across a frozen expanse of sky on an almost nightly basis in the north. Some nights, the lights even sing.

Night is my time. My brain sort of muddles through the day, and as evening approaches, all of the cogs finally settle into place and start spilling out coherent thoughts. When I was much younger I used to write myself to sleep, writing poetry, prose, and wildly imaginative stories and arguments in my head until I drifted off to sleep. No counting sheep here! And many nights, when that didn't work, I'd get up and wander the backyard for hours watching the sky, the stars, the moon, the northern lights. God has spoken to me a lot in those hours, and in many nighttime wanderings since childhood. My closest moments with God, as well as my deepest wrestlings have come after midnight, under a night sky.

When I moved to the South Pacific, my midnight wanderings didn't change. But the sky did. No more northern lights. Rather, the sky grew deeper and closer, stars shone differently, clustered, the sky looked more like diamond-encrusted velvet, and instead of northern lights, I looked for falling stars. I would sit in the sand or swing in the hammock, under palm trees and hear waves pound over the reef. The struggles and moments with God, changed the same way the night sky did. The struggles were deeper and closer to the heart, and the moments of closeness with God were so much more beautiful, more precious even than they had ever been before.

Many nights I sat there, homesick for a Canadian sky, watching the tide go out and feeling like everything I knew to be right and true and real was pulling away with it. The difficulty of making another country home, trying to find place or belonging, struggling to learn the joy of living and learning cross-culturally, having everything you think is normal counteracted, all these things brought me out underneath the night sky. All these things cemented my relationship with God, as I learned to let go, and let God. It started to be home.

And then, one night, God whispered, it's time to leave.

A few months later, broken, still in the middle of full-time ministry, my last night arrived. Emotions were running high and team dynamics were everywhere. The base was in the middle of its yearly trustees meetings and mission builders, staff and community were all going through dramatic times. I put my babies to bed (not actually mine, I just get to loan them sometimes:) ), and I escaped. My bags were packed, and I went to the beach, one last night, one final stand in the ocean, looking at the stars.

It wasn't a long linger, it was short, hurried, me knowing that anything too long would bring on a flood of tears that I wasn't prepared for. That was my last midnight wandering for awhile, and I was angry with God.

I wasn't in a good place when I left. Emotionally and physically, I was worn out. There was very little love left, although I was serving and teaching, my faith in God was at an all time low. Looking back it scares me, a little, I could have kept on going for a long time, just barely making the grade, putting on a cover.

But by God's grace, mercy an infinite wisdom, He pulled me out.

I came back to Canada with the goal of relocating to serve in Asia in 8 months. I arrived in Canada in April and I was positive I was going to leave by January.

It's 4:23am, as I write this, and everyone is sleeping, otherwise I would be laughing out loud. Because it's so ridiculous, writing this and realizing the unrealistic expectations I had.

By July, I started cluing in that God wasn't going to be moving me to Asia as quickly as I'd planned, but that didn't stop me from trying to force His hand.

Apparently God is more stubborn than I am.

Good thing too. It's been hard, emotionally and spiritually recovering. But what's been harder, is realizing the absolute lack of control that I have. I like to be in charge of situations. I like knowing that if I do a, followed by b, naturally c will occur. God, (surprise, surprise) doesn't work like that.
It's more like if I do a, He'll do z, and naturally 8 will occur.

God doesn't think like me. Probably a good thing too.

I've been lying awake thinking of Jeremiah 29:11. Everyone knows this verse: For I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord. It's probably one of the most over-quoted scriptures of all time. Doesn't make it less true though. Even though this is a verse written specifically with Israel in mind, it teaches us something about the character and nature of God: We are on God's heart, and His plans towards us our plans with good intention.

God showed me something a few years ago. When you look at the context of this verse, Jeremiah is writing a letter to the children of Israel, they've just been carried away captive. Let's put it another way, an army has just come in and forced them out of their homes. There has probably been killing, robbery, abuse, maybe even rape. They've been taken out of their homes and been forced to relocate into another land. At first glance, it doesn't really look like Jeremiah is writing a letter of hope, he's telling the captives to settle in this other land, there's not going to be rescue, no one's coming to save them, not for 70 years! That's more than a lifetime for some of them.

And then Jeremiah inserts the promise that God is thinking good thoughts towards them.

I know for a fact, that I would not have been receptive or believed in that promise. It wouldn't have looked like there was any hope. Stripped of everything, I would have done what I could to regain control over my situation.

But God moves us into places and situations we can't control. It drives us to our knees and it brings us, or at least me, under the night sky, recognizing the vastness of God and His infinite wisdom.

I was broken when I left the South Pacific, but I didn't realize how much. I'm becoming whole again, finding my feet and my personality and new vision and new dreams. I still want to serve. My heart is still to go overseas, to share God's love with people who have never encountered hope.

The journey there might just take longer than expected.

One thing I do know, from northern lights to southern stars, He is still God. His sovereignty does not change. He's got the whole world in His hands.


Note: The photos on this page are not my personal photos, but pulled off of google images.