I have always loved creating peaceful places. Houses, classrooms, dorm rooms, offices…wherever anyone wants me to come, I will work to make the space both functional and homey. It is fun for me, like a hobby of sorts. This weekend helping Hannah set up her apartment was exhaustingly enjoyable. However, shopping for hours, then putting it all together always takes more time than you think it will. By the time we finished Sunday night, the apartment was beautiful, and we were both dog-tired. I hugged her good-bye and promptly headed towards home, hoping to arrive sometime before midnight. To avoid sleeping at the wheel, I opened the sunroof, the windows and turned the music up loud. Shortly outside of Rome, I saw the full moon rising on the horizon. The creamsicle ball turned to butter as it rose above the trees, eventually becoming a glowing silver light, which illuminated the rural road home like a spotlight. I soon realized it would be my traveling companion the whole way, since I was headed due east. I was inspired, so I put on my worship music…and with the windows down, I sang as loud as I wanted to. Just the moon and me. The newly cooled wind whipped my hair into a tangled mess, and brought a smile to my face…as usual.
I was reminded of something one of my children said once. I think it was William who told me, that when he was little, he used to think that the sun and the moon were God’s eyes… always watching over us, no matter where we were in the world. You could look up and see him watching you day and night. It brought William comfort as a little boy of 5 years old to know that God was big enough that all anyone had to do was look up to see him. He said that since God is light, it only made sense that the lights in the sky were part of him…just shining on everything. It was a precious moment for me to think about it from the viewpoint of a child…my child.
On this night, I pondered that idea as I drove. I looked up at the moon just as it disappeared behind the clouds. It was as if it was playing hide and seek. Not that it was very well hidden…the light shown out in every direction from behind the shadowy wisps. (God cannot really hide his light very well, even in the darkness.) I could have easily “found” it if we had truly been playing. I thought about calling out, “I see you,” but decided that, while singing at the top of my lungs was acceptable, yelling to an inanimate object in the sky was not. About that time, the moon came out of hiding as if it knew I had seen it. It was my turn to hide. The ribbon of highway was curling around, weaving under the trees and soon, they were so thick that the moonlight could not find me. I pretended that I had found the best hiding place of all, until the trees thinned and I was caught by the moonbeams moving between the branches like strobe lights. The moon and I played on and on like this as I drove, until it was finally high enough in the sky that clouds could no longer conceal it. Out in the open, with clouds low on the horizon, I watched God’s eye watching me. Guiding me home. Overseeing my progress. I saw silver pastures, with shadow cows grazing. I saw fences, enclosing ponds that had captured the moon within their banks. There were no streetlights on my journey, but it didn’t matter because the light was so bright my automatic bright headlights dimmed themselves. So peaceful, yet glorious was the blanket of light covering everything it could reach, that it took my breath away…this playful God who displays his glory for the beauty of it.
I arrived home, sometime after 11:00 pm, physically exhausted, but with soul refreshed and heart lightened. I thanked the moon, for keeping me company and keeping me safe. As I looked up one last time, a very tiny cloud crossed in front for just a second and the moon winked at me. 😉