I am an incredibly reflective person. I thrive on opportunities to wax poetical and attempt to capture physical or emotional expressions with words. So this particular prompt was exciting to me.

One experience came to mind immediately. Although it was a beautiful moment, it was also touched with a certain level of gravity, so I didn’t know if it would be the best fit or even one I would know how to put into words. But this moment continued to nudge its way from the back of my mind to the front. So I started to give it serious attention but also continued to struggle putting into words the depths of emotion I experienced at the time. 

It happened in Poland on a cold March night. My older sister and I had flown to visit our younger sister and her husband on their spring break in Austria. Our travels took us to an Airbnb outside of Wadowice where we stayed for a few days. The weather was a mixture of snow and sun and the bite of the earliest spring. On our last day, my brother in law spent hours heating the woodburning hot tub for us to enjoy. By the time the water was the perfect (maybe slightly too warm) temperature, we climbed in under the shade of an inky sky.

The experience was so familiar – family visiting together late at night, reminiscing while also sharing updates, but all tinged with the underlying magic of the ordinary taking place in the extraordinary: out in the open at the top of a hillside in another country, houses scattered below and across a small lake.

At one point, I tipped my head back to take in the clear expanse of the stars. In an instant, my eye caught the quick flash of a shooting star – a bright tail darting across the sky. Shooting stars are not an unheard of experience for me (in fact my younger sister has admitted to me how jealous she is of this), but they definitely have been few and far between. The providence of one at that time and that place felt so significant – so unimaginable – so improbable, it took my breath away.

It made me feel equally so seen by the God of our universe and yet so inconsequential. There I sat, under a sky of stars that were thousands, millions, billions of years old. What those stars have had to witness and stand guard over throughout the generations. I couldn’t help but picture another person, head tipped back, gaze trained on those stars rather than on barracks or barbed wire fences. How many prayers have those stars overheard? How many pleas and heartbreaks have they absorbed throughout the years? The feeling and the moment were both massive. I didn’t share at the time and have only begun sharing it slowly – preferring to hold it close and ponder it, trying to grab hold like cupping water in my palm. The world our Lord has created joins us in our sorrows and our joys. It stands witness, enjoining all our pains and delights with each other, regardless of time or space. It draws us close to each other as well as our maker, and that is a beautiful thing.