You can listen to today's letter HERE.
IN TODAY’S LETTER
- Telling you about one of the best days of my life
- Resource recommendation for those with loved ones questioning their faith
- Maggie’s Spring Speaking & Travel Schedule (Need a speaker this fall? Please contact me!)
Have you ever had light break through in a place of deep darkness?
It happened to us on April 10, 2022— Palm Sunday that year, my husband’s birthday every year.
We were serving our church family in Norway for three months that spring—nights and days brimming with Bible studies, home visits, counseling, preaching. With the local schools closed the week before Easter, normal church activities paused to allow families time to travel before regathering to celebrate the Resurrection.
Seizing the free week on our calendar, Mike and I booked an intercoastal voyage through the barrier islands on the North Sea just above the Arctic Circle. Our ship, the Kong Harold, docked at several ports daily, disgorging day passengers while taking on supplies and mail. The passengers were mostly Norwegian, with a sprinkling of French and German tourists. We were the only Americans on board.
On the morning of April 10, we disembarked for a bus tour of the Vesterålen Islands. The ship moved down the coast, where we would reboard that evening. To our delight, our first stop was a ancient Lutheran church established in 1100, only a century after Christianity came to Norway, effectively ending the looting and pillaging my fierce Viking ancestors were (unhappily) noted for.
Surprise! We had arrived just in time for the Palm Sunday service. The old stone church held the Arctic cold, but the clergywoman’s welcome was warm. After a brief homily, she led us in the Lord’s Prayer and a hearty rendition of a classic hymn we knew well, encouraging visitors to pray and sing in our native tongues.
“It will be a bit of a cacophony,” she smiled, “but the Lord hears each of you!”
That evening the bus drove us through the region of the famed Lofoton Islands. By mid-April, light lingered till nearly 10 pm, affording us stunning views of fishing villages with red-painted homes and vast racks of cod drying in the fading light. Then back on board the ship to soak in the hot tub on the prow of the ship—the water hot and bubbling while our heads stayed cool in the Arctic air.
How could the Sabbath get better than this? Yet the best was yet to come.
After toweling off, I returned to our tiny cabin while Mike climbed to the upper deck of the ship for a look at the vast expanse of stars —pinpricks of light punched in the velvet blackness of an Arctic night. Movement caught his eye—a slender thread of green spooling down from the sky.
Roused by his call, I threw my parka over my pajamas and raced upstairs to find other passengers gathering on deck as well, heads pointed skyward. The ship doused its deck lights, and the celestial display unfurled: first one, then countless rose and emerald strands spiraling out of the heavens, illuminating the sky.
It was Aurora borealis—the Northern Lights! Scientists call these auroras the result of disturbances in Earth’s magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Those privileged to see them call them a miracle.
Along with our fellow passengers, Mike and I stood in the polar cold gazing upwards for nearly two hours as the lights draped a luminescent curtain from one horizon to another. I heard someone murmur that they felt as if the night sky was singing.
Just as our day was about to end, Mike had received the best birthday gift of all—God’s magnificent show of light, one we never expected to see in our lifetime.
Conditions have to be exactly right for the lights to appear: a clear, dark sky— preferably moonless— a northern location, and favorable solar weather. It often takes the deepest darkness to reveal the splendor.
Perhaps you’ve been in a place of profound darkness. Perhaps you’re there even now.
The loss of a loved one has carved a jagged hole in your life.
An adult child for whom you’ve prayed for years shows no signs of breaking the bondage of addiction.
Countless job applications produce no job offers.
Depression shows up like an unwanted visitor who refuses to leave.
Your once-confident faith has devolved into disabling doubt. You feel lost.
And then—when you least expect it—light breaks in like an aurora of hope.
“If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” (Psalm 139:8 NIV)
In the darkness of doubt, pain, and despair, you are gifted with treasure —the knowledge of the presence of the One who spun the universe into being, the Light of the world illuminating your path.
The scent of hope. The fragrance of faith.
"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5)
IMMANUEL—God with you now, tomorrow, always.
Turn your face towards the light, friend—it’s on its way. And the dark, too, blooms and sings.
So much love,
Maggie
Recommended Resource: Walking Through Deconstruction: How To Be a Companion in a Crisis of Faith, Ian Harber (2025, InterVarsity Press.)
Maggie’s Spring Schedule
3/14-16 North Summit Women’s Conference, Sandpoint, Idaho
3/ 26-4/8 Brewster Resthaven Pastors Retreat, Kihei, Maui
4/ 25-27 By Design Women’s Leadership Retreat, Plainfield, NH
5/ 9-10 Wheaton College Alumni Reunion, Wheaton, IL
4/ 24-27 Filter of Hope Ministry Vision Trip, Havana, Cuba
(Does your church or women's group need a speaker this fall? I'd love to serve you this way! Drop me a note or simply reply to this email.)