"Not being able to see may sometimes keep us from believing that we are seen."
- Anita R. Canfield
Stars in the Night - Barry Manilow (from his musical, "Harmony")
As I child I would sit in my front yard on a clear summer night and look up at all of the stars in the dark night sky and wonder.... I would wonder about what they were, how they got there, who made them and why? I marveled at those little twinkling lights in the dark night sky.
Of course I learned the childhood verse:
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are.
And then there was the childhood ritual of wishing on a falling star:
"Wish I may, wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight..."
We'd make a wish, and if we believed and were lucky enough the wish would most certainly come true, right? Oh, if only it were that easy....
Did you know that the star is a symbol of hope? (I may have mentioned this before in a previous blog entry). I really like the quote at the beginning of this entry because it has rung true frequently in my life. Sometimes I "can't see the forest for the trees" because I get so scared or so caught up in whatever crisis I am going through at the moment, that I think I am having to go through it all alone and that no one understands it. I lose sight of "the big picture", and feel like I can't "see" the purpose or reason for the challenge I am having to deal with when I am in the heat of the moment. But, I find that if I can take a step back and expand my perspective, I seem to be able to get a better understanding of why I am or have gone through what I am/have been going through.
There is a saying that "hindsight is 20/20" and I believe it. As I look back at some of the experiences I have had in the past from this side of them, I begin to understand and "see" the reason for them. I see they happened to teach me something or test my character or values, or to help me to have empathy for someone else who is experiencing a similar crisis. I see that I wasn't really alone while going through them, that I was actually "seen" and cared for by a higher being, by God, but I just had a hard time believing it at the time. He knew and knows what I am going through and why, even when I don't. I just have to continue to believe that and trust that in the long run "all these things shall give (me) experience, and shall be for (my)good" (see Doctrine and Covenants Section 122: 7). I have to continue to hold on to that light, that star in the night, and keep believing.
"Like a bolt out of the blue
'Fate' (God?) steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star,
Your dreams come true."
"Like a bolt out of the blue
'Fate' (God?) steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star,
Your dreams come true."
When You Wish Upon a Star - Jiminy Cricket, of course ;-).
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