A Quiet Night and A New Year

by Karen Ruhl

In December, many people around the world went outside to see if they could view the Christmas Star. We read articles and were so excited to see the occurrence that hadn’t happened in over 800 years. Jupiter and Saturn were to line up on Dec. 21, so close together that they would appear as one bright shining star.

Some even referred to it as having a tie to the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus Christ with its occurrence so close to Christmas this year. To this, I smile and shake my head, knowing that the star that came out to announce the birth of our Savior was not two planets lining up but God announcing the birth of his son, Christ Jesus.

I did go out to see the “Christmas Star,” I really wanted to see if I could photograph it, but my lenses were not long enough or powerful enough to do anything other than catch a dot in the sky.

The thought of the Christmas star made me sit and think about what that night must have been like for Mary and Joseph and for the shepherds who witnessed the light and saw the baby so early in His life.

I imagine Mary’s labor screams would have awakened the village! Maybe it was a quiet night after Jesus was born and Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were left alone in that manger. Here they were, in a city far from home with a newborn and ready to start a new chapter in their lives, a new year. My favorite quiet night is to read the Bible with Craig. We take turns reading and will stop and look up a passage if we have questions. We try to match our reading to a bible study online and do the study after we have read the chapter and verses for the evening.

Sometimes after we read, there is a momentary quiet as we put our Bibles away, thinking about what we just read. We end our reading by saying, “This is the word of God. Thanks be to God.”

I look forward to many quiet nights in 2021,. nights where we focus on Christ Jesus and what He did for us. Nights when we scour the Bible to find a way to tell more people about God’s mercy and grace. Nights when we reflect on who we are and what we would be without Him.

Regardless of how you spent your New Year’s Eve, take time to be with Him.

Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:10 NKJV

I look forward to the new year and knowing that my God is with me always. He will look out for us regardless of what we see before us on earth. His light is in me.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20 NKJV