Bull Shoals Lake, Diamond City, Arkansas — Saturday, July 18, 2026
Some stories you tell for fun. This one I’m writing down because it matters; it’s the kind of moment that, if you don’t get it on paper, you’ll wonder someday whether it really happened the way you remember it. It did. I file it under one caption: faith builder.
That Saturday night started loud. My good friends Chad McCutchen and Greg Ryan had invited me to Jack’s Resort in Diamond City to play a little music for the locals, and for the first time in maybe fifteen years I stepped back onto a stage. Four songs: “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Eyed Girl,” and “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” rolled into a medley with “What I Like About You.” It was rough; fifteen years away will do that. But the vibe was good, and scattered through the hundred-plus people in chairs were the ones who matter most. My wife, Nita, my kids, Michael and Abby, and family friends all around.
When it wrapped, I helped Greg and Chad break down the equipment, then walked the mile from Jack’s to Sugarloaf Marina, where our houseboat, Create.Buzz, sits on Bull Shoals Lake. Nita and the kids were inside watching TV. Hot and sweaty, I pulled on my bathing suit and jumped in off the back of the boat. No swim area back there; no lights, no crowd, nobody. “Just me, floating in that lake water, cooling off.”
Then I started looking up. The new moon had come just four days earlier, so there was no moon that night; only a few scattered house lights along the bank and a deep, dark sky with no interruption. And there it was, same as always. The Big Dipper. It’s always there. It may swing around with the seasons and the turning of the sky, but on almost any clear night of your life you can look up and find it. Nothing changes; it’s there. And floating in the water, thinking about a few people I know who are still questioning a Creator, still questioning God, still wondering what they believe, I looked up and said, ““And you think this just happened?””
In that immediate instant, right after I said it, a star exploded right in the middle of the Big Dipper. Quick. Fast. Instant. The best way I can explain it is a shooting star coming straight at you, so that all you see is the ending flash. No tail. No streak. Just one sudden flash of light, dead center in the one constellation I was staring at, in the very moment I asked the question. I paused out there in the water. “Oh my holy cow.” And then the only thing there was to say. “Thank you, Lord.”
Afterward I did a little digging. Meteor season opened that very weekend; the Perseids’ window opened on July 17 and the Southern Delta Aquariids’ on July 18, the very Saturday I was in the water. And the flash itself has a name. When a meteor comes straight at the person watching, there’s no streak and no tail, just a brief point of light that flares and vanishes. Astronomers call it a point meteor, and it’s a rare catch, because the rock has to be aimed almost exactly at the spot where you’re standing. Or, in my case, floating.
So here’s the math as best I can figure it. A meteor, on the opening night of meteor season, under the darkest sky of the month, aimed straight enough at me to show up as a single flash, landing in the middle of the Big Dipper in the same instant I asked the sky whether all this just happened. What I believe is simple. My Heavenly Father gave me a little indication that night. “Hey, I’m here. I’ve got it. It’s all going to be okay.” There’s a meaning to all this.
Sky research: American Meteor Society activity outlook for July 18 to 24, 2026; EarthSky meteor shower guide 2026; TheSkyLive moon calendar, July 2026.