Our family has been going to Lake Powell in the summers every year from the time my children were little. It’s literally one of our very favorite places on earth. The water is amazing, the red rock cliffs are incredible, and there is nothing in the world quite as beautiful as a Lake Powell sunset. And then there is the stars…so so so many stars in the night sky…which is why laying down on the top helipad deck of our houseboat in the dark of night looking up at the millions of stars shining so bright in the sky is one of my favorite things to do. It’s truly an indescribable experience that once you’ve had you can close your eyes anytime and bring it to mind.
What I find interesting is that those millions of stars are shining just as brightly up in the night sky back home, but because of all the lights of the city we aren’t really able to see them up there shining away. And as a result we often forget they are even there because their light isn’t as noticeable.
Martin Luther King Jr said:
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot today. It reminds me that the struggles we’ve all been going through with the pandemic, natural disasters, killer bees, riots and so forth, that are causing things to seem dark, are also the very things causing us to notice the light from the stars again. Because of the darkness we are no longer taking things for granted as we had been when everything was light…things like good health, our families, the shelter of home, being able to gather as friends, safe streets, and so on…
I’m grateful that I’ve been seeing the stars in the sky again so clearly. And I’m grateful to be recognizing that if it wasn’t for the darkness we’ve been going through I may have kept taking many of those stars for granted. All I can say is “never again”. Even if things in the world get brighter and the light of the stars becomes harder to see I now know the importance of closing my eyes and picturing them shining brightly against a dark sky so that I never allow myself to take them for granted again.
~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )
