Have you ever considered that you are the radiant star of your own life? How do you shine? How do you light up others that you meet? A quote I love and use often is from the co-foundress of the Daughters of St. Paul, Mother Thecla. She says “God is a very good cameraman and will project the film of our lives. Let us be radiant stars.”
I have been thinking a lot about that quote of late. There is so much going on in the world, and so much of it is simply horrible. Things are dark, people are hurting and it can seem impossible to find bright lights or radiance in the darkness around us. But, I think, we are the ones being called to be that bright light, that radiant star.
I don’t know about you, but I often think that to be a radiant star I need to do something big, something monumental. You know, something that can really light up the darkness. But, my perspective shifted as I reflected on Proverbs 20:27. It reads “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord…” Woah! That really stunned me. The spirit of man…that means my spirit, it means your spirit. It is our spirit that is the light of the Lord. How humbling is that my friends, that we are the light of the Lord? That is when it hit me. My spirit does not have to do anything big and grand. That is my brain talking, I think. My spirit just needs to shine forth, and it can shine forth in the simplest of ways.
It can be a gentle smile as I walk, in appreciation of a bird chirping in the morning. It can be visiting someone who is homebound, letting someone else cut in front of me in the grocery store. It can be using the name of the cashier as I check out of that grocery store. Have you ever done that? They usually wear name badges and I find I get the greatest smiles when I simply thank then, using their name as I check out.
Somehow, I think that in the darkness of the world these days, these little sparks of light are ever so much more meaningful. Whenever I am in great darkness, like in the middle of the night, I realize that it is the littlest light that can break through that darkness, that I can follow. What that shows me is that I don’t need to shine a big old spotlight. A little flicker of light to an individual I pass by can be enough to light them up. I share this as a way of inviting you to share your sparks of light. The radiance is not about the size of the light. It is simply about shining your light in the dark. That little light can cast away so much darkness.
Let us be radiant stars my friends. Let’s drive the dark of the world away by shining our light, for all to see.