Just a little peek

I’m not much of a fan of really hot or really cold weather. I really think I was born to live in Hawaii where it’s 72 degrees year-round. But I guess living in North Florida is better than South Florida where you practically swim in your own perspiration. It does get pretty hot up here though. But as much as I hate sticky, hot weather, I really despise cold, wet Florida weather. Everyone in my house is cold blooded and think they need the heat jacked up to 90 degrees when it gets cold outside.

Well, I come equipped with my own internal nuclear reactor, and don’t really need the artificial assistance of a gas heater.

But enough about my hormones.

There is one thing I really love about the winter; and that is the cold, winter sky. At night, when it’s really cold - like in the low thirties (I know, those who live up north think we’re weinees), and there are no clouds in the sky… it is then that I love to throw my head back and take in the utter magnificence of the stars strewn across the inky blackness.

I remember a science project we did when I was in elementary school. We all got a corrugated box and painted the exterior black. With some sharp instrument like an ice pick (that was back in the 60’s when kids could be trusted in school with sharp instruments and all the school rooms were painted with lead-based paint), we poked holes in the box. Some poked randomly, but most poked our holes in an astrological pattern that we copied from a paper the teacher provided.

Then the teacher put a light in the box, closed it up, turned off the classroom lights, and turned on the light inside the box. It looked so cool – like the starry sky on a clear, moonless, winter night.

Back then, it didn’t take a whole lot to impress elementary age kids.

Taking my dogs out before bedtime and then again before dawn every morning, I have plenty of opportunities to stargaze. On the first really clear, cold night of this winter, I looked up to the moonless sky. Immediately, I was transported back some forty-odd years to Mrs. Caldwell’s third grade class – I was looking at the black box again.

Some folks like to say there are windows in the floor of heaven where the current inhabitants can look down and see us. I like to think of it a little differently, even though there is no scriptural basis for any of these musings. It kinda looks to me like God has poked holes in the blackness of the night sky so that just a tiny glimpse of His Glory is visible to those who are looking for it.

We must stop often, open our eyes, ears and souls to really take in and experience the works of His Hands and appreciate it. His Glory is all around us.