Beautiful Things

It's late at night, after midnight, but I can't sleep until I write this last little note.

I saw three beautiful things today. The first two I saw as I walked down to a local mall to meet my friend Mariko, a friend from our college days in North Carolina. There was snow and ice on the sidewalks with a thin layer of fresh powder lying soft on top. My boots crunched like a whisper through the snow. I love winter.

I looked up, and there it was - a cobalt blue sky with white flakes whirling against it, so lovely it took my breath away.

Then as I turned the corner past a lonely schoolyard, I saw the moon. It was almost full, round and bright, ducking in and out of a swirl of thick, puffy clouds - deep stone grey, lined with fine, bright silver. The moon over snow. White over white. Snowfall at dusk. Has the color white ever been so beautiful?

And then, in the car after dinner with Mariko at her home (an unusual thing in Japan), she asked me suddenly, "Do you think you'll go to a Christmas service at your church?"

"Yes, I hope so," I replied.

"Good," she said. "Can I go, too? I mean, if it's not any trouble?"

I was dumbfounded but managed to answer a resounding yes! Yes! Yes!

There was more.

"I think about Buddhism and Christianity sometimes, and I'm a lot more comfortable with Christianity than Buddhism," she said as we passed by the same park, now black and grey, where I had seen the moon. "I feel so good when I do Christian things. But I want to know more before I make up my mind, because it's a really important decision. And," there was a pause as we turned the corner, "I'd really like to meet some Japanese Christians. I've never met Japanese Christians before. Maybe I could meet some if I go to church with you at Christmas, and then I could see how they do things."

We were at the apartment now, and I was shaking with excitement. I could feel my face getting red with joy in the dark of the car.

"Do you have a Japanese Bible?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said, with another pause. "But I don't really understand it."

"I have some Japanese and English Bibles and some Bibles in Manga," I told her. "And the Jesus film. Would you like to see any of those?"

"Oh, yes," she said, with more enthusiasm than politeness. "Maybe they will help me understand better."

It's after midnight now. There is no more blue left in the sky, and the moon is gone. But I have just witnessed, in one evening, more beauty than one small heart can hold.

*Please pray for Mariko, who is so earnestly searching for the truth. She is so pretty and so lonely, wondering what to do with the rest of her life. God brought her all the way to North Carolina to hear the gospel, and now He has caused our paths to cross again. What an amazing Father we have... Oh, please pray that Mariko would soon find that He is her Father, too! Pray that she will open her heart to God and experience more beauty in His presence than in a thousand moons over snow.