Star

Yesterday on Pray As you go the question was; “Can I place all of my hope, all of my trust and all of my faith in God?” 

An image came of me sitting in the window of my childhood home. I was about 10 years old.  My bedroom had a bay window and I remembered sitting on my chest of drawers as I often did, staring out the window to the night sky.  I was staring in earnest.  It was Christmas Eve of a very poor Christmas year and I was looking for the star. I knew that there probably wouldn’t be many gifts because there were seven of us, but I needed to have Christmas in my heart.  So I looked for what I was told Christmas was about. (My mother reminded me that it was the year we had no heat and it was bitter cold. We got a tree on Christmas Eve  but put it in one of the rooms that would have been closed off to keep warmth given off by the kitchen stove. We opened it for Christmas and decorated the tree Christmas Day). After awhile of staring at the sky, I spotted it, the star! and contentedly went to sleep.

All the rest was anti-climatic.

I was asking God if the story was real and in my child’s mind, I received my answer in the form of a star that spoke to me. An interest in Astronomy never changed the answer I felt in my heart that night. I have, as long as I can remember, placed all of my hope, trust and faith in God.  I have had God as my anchor in the midst of chaos.  Moreover, God has always had me.  In that star, I sensed that God wanted me to know that God had me.

Some people will read this as fluff and that is okay since we often disregard other people’s experiences of the divine but it is anything but fluff.  It is the fuel that has driven me to stay faithful and to believe in the promise of Christ coming.

Christ here.

God with us.

Emmanuel.

The question is an important checkpoint this Advent.

“Can I place all of my hope, all of my trust and all of my faith in God?” 

I invite you to join me in asking yourself this often.

Can you?