Craig’s Corner
“The Prettiest Nights”
A few years ago, Tomya and I made a cross-country trip to Washington State. It was exciting because there were sites we had never seen and what a great chance to educate our kids on the beauty, diversity and history of our country. We were making a zig-zag trip from Seattle, WA to Sulphur, LA. We stopped at Little Big Horn National Battlefield … aka Custer’s last stand. Interesting perspective on the actual event … look it up.
I had always wanted to see one of nation’s greatest icons: Mount Rushmore. I had seen pictures all of my life and here we were only 8 hours away. So we plotted a course (Pre-GPS) and after my co-pilot discovering the “Black Hills” are not hills and not a short cut … we arrived some 9 hours later. We rushed into the park, not just because it was about to close, but because of the years of anticipation. And boy were we disappoint! It was a massive mountainside in my mind. It turns out they took most of the pictures much closer than were would be allowed to get. Nonetheless, it was still a wonderful memory.
So we get done and circle through Custer’s State Park and then headed East on Hwy 90 as it was starting to get dark. We needed to get as far down the road as we could before we stopped for the night. We had underestimated how much “nothing” existed in South Dakota. So we drove well into the night. And as the others rested, I kept my eyes peeled for those “Deer and Antelope playing” on our highway.
But something to my left kept catching my eye. It was a blur at first … but it didn’t go away and I finally decided to dim my light consol. I was shocked by what I saw. I had heard there were a lot of stars in the sky … but had no idea there was this many! It was a pitch-black sky wallpapered with billions of stars! Oh how beautiful! It was so moving that I stopped the car, woke everyone in the car and had them look outside. It was almost as wonderful hearing the oohs and ahs of our children.
Then it dawned on me … the “lights” we were prophesied to be look better in the darkness. We like the light of day … but the beauty of Christ in us always looks best against the contrast.
Our kids and their families will be immersed in a lot of dark places in this new school year. They will likely see and hear things that are shocking. Our prayer needs to be that they look beautiful and not politically correct in those moments. And we should not only pray for them … their teachers, school administrators, guards and Teacher Aids … but realize we are all sitting in a dark world.
If we all let our lights shine … it will be a Pretty Night! Remember that Darkness cannot hide or diminish the Light. Only we can do that.
Your fellow Light Bearer
Craig
Matthew 5:14-16