The Light We Don't See and the Light we Do

 Many of you may already know this, but I am a military brat; my father was in the Air Force.  I moved a lot as a child; we usually didn't stay in any one place for more than about two years. I was blessed to live in California, Utah, Ohio, Israel, Idaho, and then Alaska where I attended high school. I have learned many things from interacting with diverse people and cultures.

One thing I love and miss about Alaska is the Northern Lights. There is something so awe-inspiring about them; it makes me think about all the things I cannot see with my mortal eyes.  I found this picture on the internet, but it reminds me of what they looked like, just with my eyes, no camera in hand, when I saw them several times living up there. (This is where I found the photo How to photograph the northern lights - Lonely Planet)

When I married my husband, we decided to settle in Utah instead of Alaska.  As much as I love many things about Alaska, the long winters are very hard, and I wasn't sure that's where I always wanted to be. We talked about both possibilities, but in the end, we decided to live in the lower 48. I figured I wouldn't really get the opportunity to see the Northern Lights again, unless we took a winter trip up there, which is unlikely. Usually if we travel to Alaska, we go in the summertime.

Enter some stellar geomagnetic storms in the past few years. In May 2024, I saw in my news feed that the chances that Northern Lights might be viewable as far south as Utah, and so I stayed up late reading, and checking on the sky to the north every 20 minutes or so, realizing that if you miss it, you miss it, and knowing that sometimes the best viewing really only lasts for minutes, rather than hours. At nearly 1 AM, they came out. I woke up my husband and children and brought them out to show them, and we were all amazed. It was a really wonderful experience that I will never forget, running outside in our pajamas with our cameras and phones and marveling at how beautiful it was, sharing this beauty that I loved so much with my family. I could barely tell they were there with my eye, just a little bit of a faint glow on the north, almost like the clouds were backlit a little bit; but I knew what I was looking for, and I knew where to look. Once I pulled out my phone to try and take pictures, it was able to take in more light and I could see far more color and light through the lens than I could with just my eye. I pointed them out, and everyone was able to see the amazing beauty that I have missed seeing for the past 25 years or so. This was taken in the middle of the night in May of 2024. The colors are much more spread out, and the ribbons of light are far less defined this far south, but it is incredible nonetheless.

A few weeks ago, I got lucky (or maybe blessed) when a friend of mine posted a picture she had just taken of the Northern Lights on her Facebook feed. I happened to be on Facebook, it happened to show up in my feed within minutes of her posting it, and I dropped everything I was doing and ran to my front porch, finding them again by camera. This time I really couldn't see them well with my eye, but my phone found them again.  I texted a few groups I was part of, telling friends and family to go outside and look to the North through their camera lenses, because this time it wasn't the middle of the night, and they were pretty hard to spot with just the naked eye, but I wanted to give more people the chance to see and experience this AWESOME sight. 

This one was less glorious than in 2024, but I was so thrilled to be able to share it with more people I love, and it was still beautiful to see the Northern Lights again. Funner still was seeing the pictures that several of my friends and family sent in after I had messaged them about going to look for the lights.

Why am I even sharing this at all? Since I was a teenager, I have felt closer to God when I see the Northern Lights. Ribbons of light with bright spots that flowed and moved appeared to me like Heavenly corridors with beings that we caught a glimpse of, as if Heaven accidentally drew too close to Earth and we couldn't help but detect it.

Jesus Christ called himself the "light and the life of the world" and light is often used as a metaphor for truth and goodness, besides being a metaphor for Christ himself. When he came to Earth, one glorious sign of his birth was a new bright star in the sky, once again tying the idea of light with Jesus. So the Northern Lights always feel like a slice of Heaven to me.

Experiencing light feels so good, we want to have those experiences over and over again. We want to share them with those we care about because they're impactful and awesome. When I look back at the times I've seen the Northern Lights, the light and the way it felt sometimes almost seems surreal, but the experience was real and beautiful. This feels like my experiences with Jesus' light as well. There have been some tremendously impactful experiences in my life, where I have felt His love, His power, His grace, and His help, and where ideas and inspiration hit me, and it didn't feel like it came from me at all; it came from Him. I am so grateful for those experiences, and I want to give others the chance to experience that light so they can feel it too.

Because I knew where to look, I was able to share the Northern Lights with others. Sometimes, finding light or finding answers is all a matter of knowing where to look.  This concept can apply to spiritual answers, but it can also be applied to many other situations. It hit home particularly hard on the night I woke my family to show them the Northern Lights in May 2024. I remember my oldest son telling me he was glad I knew where to look, and that I had stayed up watching for the Northern Lights, because this was something he had always wanted to see and experience, but he never would have seen it if I hadn't pointed it out, and if I hadn't stayed up to watch for them. At this time of year with Christmas approaching, I am reminded that there were some wise men from the East who knew what they were looking for. "we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." (Matthew 2:2, 10) They had been watching for signs of the Messiah's birth, and once the signs appeared, they felt joy and began a long journey so that they could have the opportunity to meet Him. I don't know how they knew what to look for, whether they had prophets in their country, or scriptures that had been passed down for generations, but somehow they knew where to look and what they were looking for, and it made all the difference for them. 

I was also deeply impressed by the idea that there is so much more going on than I can see, and that with the right lenses, there was FAR more going on than I could comprehend with my body alone. My eyes could barely detect the Northern Lights in both October 2025 and May 2024. I'm too far away (unlike when I lived in Alaska and had a much more up-close view). When Gideon passed away, I was very overwhelmed with sadness, but also very overwhelmed by the "why?" Scott and I love our family, we try so hard to be good parents and losing him felt so unfair. Scott's faith inspired mine during that time, even though we both struggled through the loss. Even as we cried together, he said to me "I believe that if I could understand Gideon's part in God's plan for us, I would shout for joy." Neither of us is there yet; we're not ready to shout for joy over that loss. It still hurts immensely, especially at the holidays. But we're closer. And I also believe that God knows what he is doing, and that I will be able to thank Him one day for the experiences He gave me, and what they did to help our family learn and grow. Scott's health struggles have led us to feel similarly. It has been really hard, and I can see that these experiences have helped us to grow, and I'm almost thankful for them, but maybe not quite yet. Like the Northern Lights, there's a glimpse of that gratitude there as I begin to see the influence these experiences have had on my life, but I can't see very much with my mortal lenses, it's barely there on the horizon. I believe there is far more going on than I can understand. If I had a "camera lens" to capture more of what I can't see, I'd discern more of the magnificence God is setting in motion in my life. I absolutely believe that God is doing amazing things that I can't fully understand or recognize because I only have mortal eyes to see with. As I look with spiritual eyes and try to comprehend more, I can see glimpses of amazing things, but I am sure there is even more going on that I still can't see.

So...I guess this is my way of celebrating the birth of Christ by talking about celebrating the light. I want to acknowledge the light I do see and that light I don't, knowing that it is there and that I need to keep looking in the right places at the right times with the right lenses to help me see more of God's hand in my life.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6) Merry Christmas friends and family!! 

Ah perspective

Guys, life continues to be hard. Scott has a lot of unexplained pain. I ended up in the ER in June with diverticulitis (after Scott was laid off, it was terrible timing.) We have had many challenges over the past months. And we have experienced many miracles. My perspective is deepening, and my ability to trust in God's plan for me grows, even as I still wonder how this is all supposed to turn out.

For the past 9 months, I have tried to take one step into the darkness at a time as I try to find whatever path I am supposed to be on. I feel like the Lord is testing my ability to trust Him because I keep getting one piece of the puzzle at a time, and I don't know what the final product is supposed to look like yet.

Impression number 1 came in January: Let go of your job at the end of this school year. This is not what you're supposed to do next year.

This was really hard for me. I love my coworkers (I still love them, they're just not my coworkers anymore.) I love teaching music. I love working with children of all ages. I loved this school community and the children I had worked with for the last 3 years. And I had just moved my two youngest girls to that elementary school so we could all be together (which is not our boundary school), so pulling myself from the school meant I probably needed to return them to our boundary school or change schools. I began to explore options for what I should do.  My impression really only told me what I should NOT do, but gave no further information, so I began exploring options. I auditioned at Weber State University in their music department in February, thinking I might try the route of becoming a music educator. I was offered a vocal scholarship (in April, it took a while for them to make their decisions). I considered this very strongly. In the end, after meeting with advisors and planning my route, I walked away from Weber State with another impression.

2. Going to Weber State and pursuing music education was not it. I felt almost sick to my stomach as I left. Even with the excitement of being offered a scholarship, knowing it would take several years to finish school just felt like far too long a timeline. And it felt inflexible. If I pursue music education, I'm locked into additional performances and rehearsals not only through college but through my career. Back to the drawing board.

3. Go on the field trip. I felt like I should go, so I went on a field trip with my kindergartner. I was a last-minute add-on chaperone. While we were driving down the road on her school bus, I saw a sign that showed a new charter school was opening up in our area. I had seen the sign many times before, but always as the driver in my car. For some reason, seeing it as a passenger hit different. The impression hit me HARD: apply there. And if I were going to apply, then I should also apply to have my kids attend there. I started looking into their open positions and saw that the music teacher position required a teaching license. I realized that it might be in my best interest to get my teaching license. My children got into the charter school.  I did not even get called for an interview (I had applied even without my teaching license.)

4. I started looking at other music teaching positions, many of which required licensure. I started looking into online programs that would help me get my teaching license, and wondered if, rather than Weber State University, I should attend Western Governors' University online and obtain my teaching license as fast as I possibly could, ideally within a year.  End the end, this is what felt right. I would have liked to have started May 1st, but there were some transcript delays, and my start date had to be pushed back by a month. For a while, I considered math education. That's what I initially applied to WGU under. I considered music education. I considered elementary education. That is the one that felt right.

5. Scott lost his job. Again. This is the second time in 2 years that he has been laid off.  I had already committed to starting school, and despite our now incomeless status, I proceeded with the plan. Thankfully, most of my tuition was covered by grants, so we only had to pay a few hundred dollars for this semester and I was able to jump straight in at the beginning of summer. With my stress levels so high and my determination peaked, it was wonderful to be able to jump in and work on school over the summer. It gave me something I could control Weber State would NOT have worked out that way. As Scott searched for job offers, we considered a move to Idaho. We traveled up there and looked around. This one was tricky. I felt impressed that I needed to trust in Scott's decision. This time, it was not my choice to make. I know I could have influenced Scott a lot, that's how marriage works. But I felt like I needed to let him be the driver, and so I tried hard to be as open as I could to all the possibilities and to let him make the choice.  He ended up taking a remote position that allowed us to stay in our current home. 

6. I feel really great about pursuing a degree in Elementary Education. I am loving my classes, loving the chance to do observations, and loving how they are helping me to be a better teacher AND mother. I still do not know what the next year will bring. I haven't stepped that far into the darkness yet. But this path feels like the right one, so I keep taking steps on the path.

One little story about perspective. I am currently taking a math class for elementary educators, and we have learned a lot about encouraging students to explain their thinking. I realize as a parent, that it is irritating as heck to have your child have to explain why they arrived at the answer when they added 11+ 13 and got the answer 24. Even for me, it's a little tricky to explain "It says to add, so I added it." Hear me out as an (almost) educator, though. When kids explain what happened in their brains, it lets teachers figure out if they are using the correct strategies or if they are doing something that could be improved.  My 1st grader brought home a little homework packet (her teacher gives just one packet for the week, and it is optional, but I want to see how she is doing and help her, so we try to do her homework each week.) This is the first time she has done subtraction on her homework.  She did great with the problem 9-6= ____ and she did just fine with 8-2=____   But when she got to _____=10-7 and ______ = 12-6 she put the answer 0 in both blanks. Without my current background, I would have immediately told her that she got the wrong answer and to try again.  With my current information, I asked her to explain how she came up with that answer.  Guys...since the equals sign was on the left side of the problem, she did them backwards. She read it right to left. She hasn't seen it done this way before, and did not understand that the numbers still have to go left to right. So she thought "7-10 takes them all away which is 0," and "6-12 takes them all away which is 0". When I told her we needed to try those two problems again, she ended up crying and feeling so bad that she hadn't done them correctly. Scott was able to distract her for a few minutes to give her a chance to calm down, and then help her understand that the equals sign can go on either side of the equation, but we always read the numbers from left to right. I keep thinking about this little math situation and perspective and experience. 

Sometimes, like my daughter, we take what we can see, apply whatever knowledge we have, and do our best thinking. We get an answer that makes complete sense to us. But if you look at it in a different way, it's wrong. We might be looking at it right to left instead of left to right. And sometimes we are so frustrated and upset when we realize we did it wrong, especially when we were so sure that we were correct, that we get all hung up on the mistakes and struggle to do anything besides feel bad. A simple correction in perspective can usually help open our minds up to understanding things when we weren't quite seeing the picture the right way. Someone lovingly giving us a chance to calm down, rethink, and try again can be such a lifesaver.  

The turmoil in the world right now is overwhelming and chaotic, and so many people are sure that the way they see things is "the right way". There are a whole lot of situations where we could all use a simple shift in perspective to help us understand more people. And it's OK to be wrong and adjust our thinking. Revising and rewriting are part of life that we don't appreciate enough.  A year ago, I did not think I would be rewriting my story to become an elementary teacher. But now it feels like the right place for me to be. 

Last little quick perspective story. We went hiking with our kids and granddaughter recently. Depending on your perspective, you might have been frustrated or delighted. My 6 year old daughter and my 3 year old granddaughter kept stopping to pick up "beautiful treasures" from the trail. It made the hike incredibly slow, it felt like "tai chi hiking". These are some of the treasures: 

I sometimes don't think to appreciate all the treasures that life has to offer me. Like opportunities to pursue education. A sweet family. Lots of good food. And beautiful rocks, trees, acorns, and walnuts and children with eyes to appreciate them. I hope we can all grow in beautiful perspective and keep taking slow (even tai chi) steps forward on the path.