is not really the case here in Fairbanks. This Thursday is the official date for winter solstice this year…the time in which the earth is tilted the farthest away from the sun, bringing less daylight to the northern hemisphere than any other day of the year. Here in Fairbanks, we are anticipating sunrise on December 21 at 10:58 a.m. with sunset following at 2:40 p.m. ~ the official length of daylight being 3 hours, 41 minutes, 26 seconds. Tomorrow, though, is the last day in which we will lose daylight (16 seconds to be exact)…because beginning on Thursday, the sun will be out just a little bit longer everyday (starting with an added 4 seconds on Thursday) until the summer solstice in June when Alaska becomes the Land of the Midnight Sun.
Now…all the technical stuff aside…
When people found out that we were moving to Alaska, some of the first responses we got were “Oh, how will you be able to handle the dark…I’m not sure I could live with 6 months of darkness.” After hearing all of these comments, I was a little nervous about it myself. The kids and I tried to guess what it would look like…how dark it would really be…and for how long. We would often have conversations back in September and October asking each other at different times of the evening and night, “Do you think this is how dark it will be?” Now that we are one day away from the darkest day of the year, I am happy to report that it is not so bad after all…and it really, truly is beautiful for several reasons. First, when the sun does come up, we get the opportunity to actually see it because we’ve been up for hours…and let me say, I think God may have saved His most brilliant color palette for the Alaskan winter sky.
After this beautiful sunrise, the sun moves horizontally across the sky, just above the horizon until sunset a few hours later. So we are virtually experiencing one gorgeous sunrise that blends into a gorgeous sunset with nothing in between. Amazing!
And of course, there is always the spiritual application that God has laid on my heart. Here we are in the middle of the darkest time of the year, and God still provides a glimpse of His amazing glory…even for the briefest period, it has been enough to take my breath away on many days this December. I am in awe of His handiwork and at times stand in wonder at the beauty that surrounds me.
Isn’t it just like Him…to supply even a moment of beauty in the midst of our darkest hour. We all experience seasons of darkness in our lives, but if we look very closely, we will catch a glimpse of something beautiful right in the middle of it all. Those are the moments that push us forward, knowing that in just a little while, the sun will shine longer, and the season of darkness will cycle through to a season of light.
Which brings me to Christmas…in our darkest hour, in our darkest season, He sent His Son, to be born of a virgin, to bring light into our world…a moment of hope…a moment of light…His glory forever.
Choosing Life 
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