After taking an honors class and being forced to analyze texts for a whole semester, I realized that God also hides messages in our daily life for us to analyze. These can be in anything we do, anything we see, or anything that happens to us. There’s a reason behind everything, so taking a step back and deeply analyzing your life can open your eyes and give you understanding to something God is trying to tell you.
One way that I feel closest to God is through nature, especially through the stars. And the stars here in Haiti and the DR are breathtaking. They are like something I’ve never seen before and a couple times these stars nearly brought me to tears because I was in so much awe of their beauty. I was never sure why I was drawn so much to the stars because not many people can stare at them for as long as I can. So, I tried to analyze this to uncover the meaning behind them for my life.
First off, I tried to take a picture of these stars a million times. My phone cannot capture any of the stars. Even if I had a nicer camera here, it could not capture the whole experience that my eyes can. Not being able to take a picture of these stars, makes this experience much more intimate with God. Only I can experience the glory and beauty and it cannot be shared with anyone else who is not present with me at the time. This is the same with our lives. We need to be fully present in our relationship with God to completely experience His power in our lives. Another person can try to “take a picture” of their relationship with God and share that with us, but we will never be able to experience the intimacy/impact of that relationship and it will not effect our life at all. The only way to be truly changed by God is being present with Him daily because then you will constantly be in awe by the way He is working around you continuously. I learned this while on the mission field this summer. I left behind my busy life in Wisconsin and I spent two whole months being present with God. Because of that, I was able to experience the power and love of God everyday and to hear His voice daily.
When I stargaze, I don’t look at the whole sky at once. I like to look at one star at a time to see how bright and beautiful each star is. This is how God looks at us. We are like the stars. We may seem so small and so unimportant because we are such a tiny part of the big picture. But, God notices us individually and He tells us how important we are because we all play a role for His kingdom and His plan.
Shooting stars can symbolize endings or a big change coming to your life. The first time I saw a shooting star was on New Years Day 2015. This one was super special because it was HUGE and it flew across the whole sky. The year of 2015 was my last year of having a normal childhood. My grandma ended up being diagnosed with cancer at the end of that year, passing away in 2016 along with two of my other grandparents. After that, my life changed dramatically.
Then, on the last night in the DR, I saw around 20 shooting stars, just in a short amount of time while stargazing with my good friend. I didn’t see any shooting stars during those two months besides that night. But, God provided the perfect timing to show me those shooting stars. These past two months brought a very big change in my heart and my life. I won’t be going home the same as I was in the beginning and I also know that my life will be very different when I return home. By God giving me these shooting stars, I know He is saying that change is okay and that I should not worry or be afraid. God is calling me to different plans for the future than what I have planned before and I know that if I continue to follow Him then I will be okay.
“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.”
??Psalm? ?147:4? ?NIV??
