Bright and morning star

These last days have been pretty rough. A few nights ago I stood on the beach in the dark, listening to the crashing waves, and talking to God. I remembered how he is called the lily of the valley and the rose of Sharon, the bright morning star.
The thing about the morning star, I thought as I looked at it glimmering against the blackness of the sky, is that it doesn’t show up in the sky until the very darkest part of the night. The same with the lily of the valley: it is a tiny fragrant flower that grows all by itself in a valley. The rose of Sharon is an exotic rose that grows like a splash of colour in a barren desert.
And so it is with the Lord. In the dark places of life he is like the morning star that appears in the pitch blackness, so small you hardly see it, and it says, morning is coming. There is hope.
Last night after classes I was exhausted, but I figure that if I’m going to be exhausted I might as well be really exhausted, so I joined a group of students who play soccer every Monday, Wednesday, Friday after classes. We play until it gets too dark to see the ball and then we lie of the field and talk and then stumble home to study.
The ball got stuck 25 feet down a culvert and I decided to go in after it. I had my entire body in before John, one of the other students, grabbed my ankles and dragged me out, yelling at me. John is Greek and his voice can be heard from about a mile away.
“We can get another ball,” he shouted, “But we can’t get another Heather!”
We found a football and started playing football instead. Being the smallest of all the other players, I definitely got more than my share of tackles. We ran and crashed into each other and fell and laughed and felt the stress of the month oozing out a bit. By the end of the game I staggered to the car, sweaty and exhausted. Burton and I stopped to pick up one of our professors and we drove home to cook dinner.
On the way we suddenly saw something in the road. We drove over it just as I realized that it was a giant crab.
“Stop!” I shouted.
We lurched to a halt and I leapt out and taking our laundry basket and emptying it on the back seat, I ran after the crab. I caught him in the basket and jumped back into the car. He was the largest crab I’ve ever seen; his pincer was at least 10 inches long. We carried him carefully into the house and took a couple of pictures, then I killed him with a butcher knife and stuck him into a pot to boil. I quickly whipped up some pizza and then jumped into the pool to cool off while it was cooking. My professor and I sat in the cool water looking up at the stars, sipping rum and coke. He had just heard some devastating news three days before and I asked him about it and there were tears in his eyes. We talked for a while, talked about God’s plans for our lives.
The pizza and the crab were done and we sat around the dinner table, me and Dr. G and Burton and Burton’s sister Jill. Burton and Jill weren’t crab fans so Dr. G and I sat there blissfully happy up to our elbows in hot crab and garlic butter and pizza and pickles and rum and coke.
Then we had chocolate and vanilla ice cream with melted nutella dribbled over it and fresh papaya from our neighbor’s garden.
I stayed up late doing laundry and dishes and then studying for hours and then collapsed into bed, listening to the howling wind and the distant crashing waves outside.
The football game and the fresh crab were like the morning star. The joy that comes in the garden of pain. The banquet table prepared in the presence of my enemies.
I don’t deserve it but I’m so grateful for God expressing his love for me in these little ways.

"I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" – Job 25