Starry Night

"Wow, look at all the stars!" Bretton gaped at the tiny specks of light splattered across the night sky as he and his dad walked onto the beach. "I don't think I've ever seen so many at once!""It's amazing, isn't it?" Dad spread a blanket on the sand so they could sit down. "This has always been my favorite part of camping--getting away from all the city lights so we can see the stars.""Yeah," said Bretton. He pointed to a twinkling point of light. "Look at that one! It's brighter than the rest.""That's Sirius, or the Dog Star. It's one of the closest stars to Earth, and it's twice as big as our sun." "Really? It's bigger than the sun?" asked Bretton."Sure is. And it's small compared to some other stars out there." Dad pointed to a spot slightly below Sirius. "In that area of the sky is one of the biggest stars we know of--VY Canis Majoris. It's two thousand times bigger than the sun!" Dad took a quarter out of his pocket. "If this quarter was the sun, VY Canis Majoris would fill half a football field!""No way!" Bretton looked at the dim spot in the sky. "But I can't even see it from here!""It's too far away to see with the naked eye," said Dad. "You need binoculars or a telescope.""It's so much bigger than Sirius, but Sirius is easier to see," observed Bretton. "And the sun is the smallest of them, but on earth it shines the brightest!""That's because of the stars' distance from earth, not their size. If you saw all three side by side, you'd know which one was biggest!"Dad leaned back on the blanket. "You know, the same can be true of how we view God, the One who made the stars. Sometimes on earth God can seem small and distant compared to other things that seem important, like being successful or having cool stuff. But God sent His Son, Jesus, to bring us near to Him, and when we have a relationship with Jesus and see His goodness in our lives, His light becomes brighter and everything else grows dim. Just like being close to a star is the only way to see its true size, we need Jesus to show us how big and wonderful He really is."-Courtney Lasater