December 2025 • Fifth Edition A Unique Light, Right on Time
Dear Reader,
A cozy, peaceful December to you, friend! In this season of long nights and joyful anticipation, I hope your time is filled with moments of laughter and light.
In this Notes edition, you’ll find:
🌟A reflection on finding wonder in the night and noticing the unique light that shines in each of us.
🕊️Thoughts on finishing the year strong in God’s way, rather than the world’s.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Bower! Take a winter nature-gazing moment with this quick YouTube short of a snowy sunset. Silence the sound for a truly peaceful experience! Enjoy it here.
A surprise showing of the Northern Lights here in the Midwest! The view from our backyard was truly awesome—in every sense of the word.
Notes from Nature: A Unique Light
There is something very special about the night.
I’ve been enamored with the night sky ever since I was a little girl. I could stare at the stars for hours—and I often did. With my Atlas of the Night Sky and a flashlight in hand, I’d gaze up, searching for the constellations and planets within view.
On the nights of meteor showers, I loved “camping” in the bed of Dad’s truck for the best view, or lying on the hillside under a blanket of sky, waiting for the next shooting star. I remember the tickling anticipation. I knew another meteor would flash soon; I just didn’t know when. There couldn’t be a more magical way to fall asleep.
Even now, gazing up into the night fills me with that same wide-eyed wonder. There’s a deep sense of the sacred for me—as though I’ve stepped into a vast, endless cathedral that surrounds me—and that I’m also a part of.
Night has a way of inviting us to face the mysterious, the unknown, the hidden—and to bring certain things into focus more clearly. It can feel unsettling at times. And yet, it is only in the darkness that we can distinguish the unique ways the moon, the stars, the planets, the meteors, the comets, and even the northern lights each shine a little differently—each sharing its own beauty, filling us with wonder.
The same is true with us. The gentle, mystical light of the Divine often reveals itself most clearly through us in the darkest seasons. Light from within breaks through, and our individual, unique ways of sharing love, kindness, compassion, and hope shine their brightest. There is tremendous beauty and awe in witnessing that light in others, receiving it, or even recognizing it within ourselves.
And now, in this darkest time of the year, we’re invited to step into the stillness of the night with a sense of joyful anticipation—to notice the light that will flash and shine forth all around us in so many beautiful souls.
We can be certain it will appear, even if we don’t know exactly when—because it is the spark of the Divine Light that shines within all of us.
A Light that fills far beyond even the wonders of the natural world. A Light that whispers to us whenever we step into the quiet cathedral of the night.
You have a standing invitation to step outside tonight—or any night—and let it carry you into that beautiful, vast space of joyful anticipation and wonder. What unique light do you see? May it bring you deep peace.
“
As God loveth a cheerful giver, so He also loveth a cheerful taker, who takes hold on His gifts with a glad heart.
— John Donne
close-up detail on three uncompleted works
Notes from the Studio: Right on Time
It always takes me awhile to really get settled into a space—my art studio being a perfect example.
I recently spent some time rearranging and reorganizing my art studio…again. It's been a little over two years since we moved into our home (my childhood home), and I think this was round 3…or maybe 4. I'm sure it will continue changing over the years, but for now, I'm happy to say that it finally feels right.
Now I love sitting down at my workspace—all of the colored pencils, acrylic markers, charcoal pieces, and crayons on display and at the ready—couldn't be more inviting! Much better than stored in respectable, sterile-looking bins.
Sure, ideally, I would have set things up this way right from the start and never had a need to rearrange again. But the reality is, it just took time. There is a certain amount of “feeling things out” and working in a particular space that needs to happen first, to know if everything is set up in what seems most in sync with the way I work in and use a space. Time, trial, and error are an integral part of the process.
During my reorganizing, I found myself looking at a number of unfinished works and found myself thinking I should try and finish them before year’s end—just push through and get them done so I could feel good about that. I also thought about studying a few processes and techniques I'd been wanting to try. I thought about a lot of things that I felt would be great to get done before January 1st.
I wanted to “finish the year strong” to set myself up to start the year off at a run. But what does that really look like? While all of those thoughts might be good things to pursue, the critical realization I came to was that those thoughts reflected my own self-imposed expectations of how I thought things should be progressing, and how the world might measure my progress… while ignoring how the Master Artist might see it.
So I asked myself, what might “finishing the year strong” look like to God?
My answer came simply in the season of Advent: a time of hopeful waiting and joyful anticipation. A time of active stillness. A time of interior preparation, rather than exterior work. To trust the unfolding of the plan, all in God's perfect timing.
And so I'm doing my best each day to ask what God wants me to spend time with, how God wants me to spend my day, and to surrender my own feelings of needing to push and do.
I'm doing my best to enter into the season, to allow God to do the work within me that will surely set me up to be in the best place possible to enter into the gift of the new year, and all that God has in store.
My friend, as the final days of this year are being written, I pray that you too may enter deeply into the beauty of preparing a joyful and peaceful place within your heart, remembering that God is truly with us, just as He promised.
Warmest wishes to all my new and returning Friends of the Bower.
Each month, I write the names of new readers and place them in the little prayer jar on my desk—a reminder of this growing circle and of each of you I hold in prayer.
During this beautiful season, may you remember that your light matters—shining warmth and hope into the world. May your days be filled with lasting peace, joy, and beauty.
I love hearing from you—your replies are always welcome!
