Shine before others

Reading the bible is not something that I do often, rather I pick it up when I am looking for something, or am in bible study or church.  Reading the bible gives comfort and knowledge, and that is what I am working hard to get from the bible.  So instead of participating in read the bible in a year, or read straight through, or something in some other form, I am doing it in my own way.  I have missed a few mornings and a few nights, but what I do, is I randomly open to a page and then random choice something on the page to read.  Sometimes it encourages me to read on, or to look  something else up, but no matter what it is getting me in the bible.

This past weekend I served as a YARP (young adult resource person) for a lock in at my church.  It was a combination of the 30 hour famine and Souper Bowl of Caring with 5 churches. The attendance was around 50 of youth and adults.  I enjoyed spending time doing crazy games, and bible memorization with the youth, along with bonding with the adults.  One of my duties was to make sure everyone went to bed, so in the midst of that, I picked up my bible, flipped open to a page and began to read. 

"You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify you Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)

In the closing of the Lock-in worship service to break our fasting with shared communion with one another and closed off the service with singing "this little light of mine".  While sitting with the youth (some of which I was in youth with), I thought about this song.  The song is one that I learned when I was little bitty and knew the hand motions to, but yet it was just a song to me, and now after what I read the night before it is connected with the scriptures.

What I did not realize was that reading was part of the Sunday scripture and is what my pastor preached on.  I think it is interesting how I simply turned open the bible and began reading something and it became part of my weekend.



Continuing on, one of my homework assignments this week was to take five minutes and look at the stars and think about what is there, and take time to wonder.  I have now already done my blog, but will writing this, I begin to think of the stars and shining together.  I see the stars like individual  human beings.  Each star is different, in its brightness, location, distance and much more, just like every person on this earth has their own uniqueness.  (Snowflakes are like this as well.  Not one snowflake is like another snowflake.)


I feel like everyone is a star in the sky, just as everyone is a snowflake that falls to the ground and we are unique.  It is sometimes hard to pick the stars out of the sky, just like it hard to pick an individual out of the crowd. Have you ever taken time to let the snowflakes fall on you and then look at what they really look like.. It really is amazing how a million can fall at once, but yet there are all different.  And to me that is the same with the stars, they may look similar, but they all have their own unique qualities.  While some people my be a twin, there are no two people that are exactly the same and like the exact same things.  So take some time to learn the unique you, and find the unique star in the sky that is like you and the unique snowflake that falls.

I am a snowflake, and I am that one!

I am a star, and I am that one!