Connecting the Darkness: The Perseid-Brinski Event

Welcome to Week 2 of the 2024 Perseid-Brinski Event!

I forget how I love the darkness of the late and early hours. I forget how I love the silence when the world around me settles. I forget how I love the rest I find when I let down my guard to pray.

So that’s what I did tonight. I came home, put the groceries away, and settled myself outside on one of the deck chairs to pray under cover of both darkness and light.

The sky was perfect. The stars were crisp and clear, like a first snowfall that is too mesmerizing to bother the world with its chill. The Milky Way was spilling over the edges of the sky, inviting mystery and wonder. And I, an insignificant little speck on the Creation radar, found myself as captivated with the night sky as ever.

In June, I went to a show at the planetarium. As I gazed upon my favorite constellation, I remembered something I had heard at the show that astounded me. Some cultures don’t tell stories by connecting the stars. They connect the dark spaces in between the stars.

So there I sat, contemplating the dark spaces between the Cassiopeian stars, and it suddenly made sense in terms of my faith.

How often do we hide the dark parts of our lives?

We believe, of course, that God works “all things” together for our good, but we don’t ever mean to imply that God works our addictions, our insecurities, our bad habits, and our sins together for our good.

And yet He does.

Sometimes we are so busy looking for bright points of light that we forget God can weave together the dark spaces also. In fact, the Psalmist said it only slightly better than Rich Mullins’ declaration that “nothing is beyond You”:

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Ps 139:12, NIV

So when your sky seems dark, your night seems long, and the comfort of light seems beyond reach, be encouraged.

Our God doesn’t only make constellations of our lives. He connects the darkness, too.

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Has God ever connected the dark spaces in your life?

Would you like to share a photo, painting, poem, or memory that I can feature during the Perseid-Brinski Event?

COUNTDOWN: 34 days until peak!

Do you have a viewing plan for the meteor shower? If you’re in my locale, reach out – Little Lady, Little Joey, Hubby and I (okay, and our dog) would love to have you sit out and view with us!

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Be a fireball in the dark, friends!

From my heart to yours,