Living in Germany: Our village church

This is a picture of our village's Catholic church, St. Nikolaus. The inside is as beautiful as the outside, although I only recently saw the inside for the first time in all my years of living here. It is the bells of this lovely church, however, that mean the most to me. I like to call them my "midnight companions." For many years, I remember staying up late to read and hearing the bells chime the hour...midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock...way too late! Since our windows are closed for the most part these days because of the cold weather, we seldom hear the bells. However, the other night while lying in bed with Brent already sound asleep next to me, I heard those friendly, familiar friends ring in the late hour. It was a very still, lonely kind of night, but the sound of the bells made me feel like a young girl again, up late for no good reason, but happy to hear my companions gently calling me to go to sleep.