WHEN YOU EXPERIENCE a week as beautiful as Montreat Music and Worship, you do well to plan a soft landing into daily life. You are filled to overflowing, yes. And you carry with you joy, of course, smiling without effort as you hum this phrase and that, the words occurring without thought and somehow matching the mood and grace of the moment. Without even knowing it we had designed our re-entry perfectly, our plan to extend this mountain time through the weekend at our own place, 2500 feet higher but still surrounded by North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest.

(Oh, the singing did carry on.)

WE ARRIVED LATE FRIDAY, Cindy and Eddie, Tim and I, and we headed straight for the back porch. We looked up to find the night sky clear and dotted with stars and constellations and whirling planets so bright it brought from all four of us a grand, gasping awe. And then there was silence, each of us standing in that darkness lost in the brilliance of it all: the vast possibilities of an endless universe, the sober perspective of our tiny place in it, the unfathomable promise of a God who sees and knows and cherishes our loving hearts, each and every one. And then we looked at the clock and in spite of the past-midnight hour, we poured a toast to the music, the mountains, the stars, and to the great blessing of friendship.

SHALL WE GET UP for the sunrise? I asked a bit later, the hour so advanced it seemed a ridiculous, yet somehow important, offering.

Cindy smiled a slow, broad smile.

How can we not? she said.

And so we did.

We were rewarded, too, with Day 9’s fun surprise.

#30DaysofFun

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