I was standing at an upstairs window in early June after we had moved from Alaska to Minnesota, looking out at the evening, when I saw a bright twinkle float through the air. It flashed again; and yet again. I was seeing my first firefly!

I dashed outside, utterly entranced by the blinking, bobbing lights. Since then, I’ve seen hundreds of these cheery nightlights winking and blinking in the Minnesota dark and I’ve tried to find out something about them. Fireflies are actually beetles.

And it is only the males that fly during their elaborate summer courtship. The female hides on the ground until it sees a flash pattern signalling the presence of a male of her species and then gives a quick answering blink.

There are orange-coloured flashes and double flashes and flashes that form the letter J. This amazingly intricate dance is going on around me and all I really see is a flurry of tiny lights flitting about on a June night.

There’s so much I don’t know about the way God puts things together in the natural world; and in my own experience. For instance, before my husband Terry was born, his parents stopped in Spokane, Washington, on their way from Pennsylvania to Oregon because Terry’s father had served on the USS Spokane.

Why did they happen to settle there; never reaching Oregon? How was it that my father chose to take a pastorate in Spokane, moving his family from southern Idaho when I was six years old? These patterns created the possibility for Terry and me eventually to meet and begin our own version of “winking and blinking” courtship!

It’s something old that I’m newly learning all the time: The intricacies of God’s work in the details of life are beyond my comprehension. It only takes a blink on a summer night to remind me. Even now, Lord, You are arranging the right patterns for me. May I respond with an answering flash of faith!