Astronomy lesson

A little known factoid about me is that I really like space. I loved astronomy in grade school, and I considered joining the astronomy club in college, but it met at night (for obvious reasons) and... yeah.

I love to look at the stars and try to make out constellations. I think it's amazing that we can see something that is so far away and so, well, alien to our daily lives.

And if you're wondering, my favorite planet is Neptune. Because it's pretty. And cold (like my heart... muahaha).

Anyway, I was laying on Chica tonight, gazing up at the sky while she grazed. I was feeling sorry for myself, and I was asking God why certain aspects of my life are the way they are. I had been staring at a couple of familiar stars, trying to make them into a known constellation, and failing.

After praying and staring at the sky for a good 10 minutes, it was like my perspective suddenly changed, and I suddenly became aware of several more, very distant and faint stars in the constellations I had been looking at. Turns out I was staring the big dipper and the little dipper in the face, but not seeing them.

Is there a lesson to learn in this?

Focus only on the attention-seeking, glaring problems in your life, and you'll lose sight of the big picture. I was trying to make something out of only what I could easily see, so I was blinded to what I could not see.

I was humbled by this parallel to my life- I realized that I was concentrating so hard on my petty issues that it took my focus off the invisible- God. Perhaps if I spent more time looking at the whole picture of His will, the things that are less clear will reveal themselves.

Space, in its infiniteness, is awesome. But God, our Creator, is even more unfathomable and awesome- and yet He will still take the time to teach me a lesson, even one involving His least known creation yet- the final frontier.

Look out your window tonight. No matter if you live in the city, and the stars are hidden by lights, or you live in the country, and the stars are hidden by clouds, you know they are out there. The same is true of God; perhaps He is hidden from your view due to your situation, or your responsibilities, but He is still there. And He longs for you to discover Him.

And if the night is clear, and you see a very bright star- that's Jupiter. So cool!