By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
I couldn’t sleep.
Again.
The 4 o’clock hour winked in digital red from my clock radio, so I went into the living room and opened the windows and door, welcoming the cool breath of predawn.
At the door, I stilled. For there in the night sky rose one of the few constellations I can identify—Orion—clear and shining against the black canopy. The Hunter, some civilizations have called him, rising above the treetops with his sword and bow.
I am not a student of the stars. I am, however, a student of the Star Maker, and I marveled at His handiwork, flung, the scriptures say, from His fingertips.
Recorded in the oldest of the biblical books is God’s conversation with a man named Job. A man who, I imagine, viewed many a night sky unpolluted by artificial light. How brilliantly it must have glittered then!
“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion?” God asked.
How small Job must have felt.
How small I felt when, an hour later, Orion was gone, having paled against the approaching dawn. Yet I had a sense he was still there, striding the heavens.
He was certainly there, as are all the celestial lights, though diminished in daylight by the sun. The sky holds an unseen landscape that we forget about as we go about our daily business.
I have since wondered why I saw Orion during his brief appearance that early morning, and I sense it was one of God’s varied ways of reminding me of His presence even though I don’t see Him.
It is in God’s nature to comfort His people with his closeness, as when he opened the eyes of the biblical prophet Elisha’s servant to see the unseen army protecting them from a very visible, approaching enemy.
“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them,” Elisha told the young man.
The Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he “saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:16,17 NIV).
I may not always sense or see the Lord of Heaven’s Armies by my side, so I appreciate His reminders – in whatever form they may come. For in my journey on this earth, I am still learning to fix my eyes “not on what is seen, but on what is unseen” (2 Cor. 4:17-18).
~
Have you seen the unseen? Share on X
Her reticule. She’d forgotten about the pastor’s gift she’d crushed into it.
After removing the cord from her wrist, she drew the crumpled envelope from the small black bag. Her breath caught at two crisp twenty-dollar notes inside—each one bearing Alexander Hamilton on one end staring serenely toward a helmeted, shield-bearing woman at the other.
Etta had not seen the new notes and now she had two, in addition to a different sort of note, handwritten by Pastor Fillmore.
The God of love and peace be with you. You are in our prayers.
Tears welled at the thought of others praying for her. She did not know what lay ahead, but God did. Of all the things she might ask for, His peace was what she needed most. ~Mail-order Misfire
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Absolutely beautiful Davalynn. You are so very gifted ❤️❤️
Thank you, Carol, for your kind remark. Thanks for stopping by.
Oh WOW! This was…I am speechless.
One of the things I loved to do when I was on mission trips to the Bolivian Andes was look at the night sky. We’d find ourselves in REMOTE villages, often approaching, or beyond, 10,000 feet altitude. At night, in a village that had only a generator or solar power, and thus, no night time light, we could usually count on zero light pollution, and the sky was breathtaking. Just, utterly jaw-dropping. Those skies were in the Southern Hemisphere and therefore, unseen to our Northern eyes. We’d get sore necks from looking up. And then headaches from trying to lean over enough to get upside-down while still standing to find the Man in the Moon. We amused our Bolivian colleagues to the point that they were in tears. That man was their “unseen”. But oh, the night sky, after 12-20 hours of driving on dirt roads with ridiculous switchbacks (78 on one mountain)and terrifying drops? I have no words for the beauty of it all.
Jennifer – I can only imagine. (I think that’s been said …) but still, an unfiltered night sky must be indeed breathtaking. Like what Job saw.
Years ago, when I lived in a jungle setting, after my parents, Christian missionaries to Paraguay, South America, for over 34 years, my brother, and I, and an Ache’ Indian translator, helped contact a primitive Ache’ tribe in 1976, (where my brother still ministers to the tribe today), I would look up into the sky at night and appreciate the beauty of the night sky, and the stars, without any city lights around us dimming them, and especially liked seeing the Southern Cross. Fast forward, now my husband, a minister, live in Montana, where he pastors a rural church. Although I enjoy reading a variety of CF, I sure would love to win a print copy of Mail-Order Misfire! Thanks for the opportunity to enter a giveaway! This story really appeals to me, because I really enjoy Western-type stories, especially ones that are well-written. It is so important that they also have a spiritual thread of faith through them. Thanks, again! I wish you continued success. God bless!
Wow, Lual, what an amazing view you must have had. Thanks for sharing your experience. Mail-order Misfire is not yet in print, but hopefully will be soon. Thanks for stopping by!