A Light in the Darkness

I really like camping in the mountains, but unfortunately, I haven't been since last August in Star Valley while on a river rafting trip with friends and my second family. I really want to go camping again because I love to look at stars, and there's no better place to see them than in the mountains in my opinion. There are no artificial lights to darken our view of the beautiful, natural light of the night.

Why am I blogging about this now? It's getting cold out and camping may be considered undesirable at this time of year, but I just had a memory pop into my mind: The first time I was camping in the mountains.

It was at girl's camp and I'd been in my tent for a while after dinner one evening, but it came time for some activities so I unzipped the tent door. As I took one slow step out onto the blue tarp protruding out from under the tent, I gazed up, trying to adjust my eyes to the new darkness.

I felt like I was falling.

I literally fell to my knees at the sight of the black and white speckled sky. I looked up again to behold that those white spots were stars. There were a million and one plus a foggy, swirly strip that stretched before my view. I didn't know what it was at first, because I'd never seen it before, but upon a little pondering on scientific knowledge I decided it was the Milky Way. I felt lost in time because of the beauty I'd missed for so long. I had seen stars before, but not like this! Oh, it was such a brilliant sight that I simply fell in love with the night and with the lights that shine down.

There's just something about laying in the grass, looking up at those "balls of gas, billions of miles away" (for they're not fireflies) because it makes me want to contemplate life. I can't help but to sing "I Stand All Amazed" to myself as I stargaze. Life isn't just something to be endured, but something to enjoy! We need to take a step back sometimes, evaluate our lives, while thinking of all the great blessings we have... like stars! I like to think of the night as life on Earth. Our Heavenly Father is the moon and all his prophets, apostles, stake presidents, church leaders, and other teachers are the many many stars that help guide our way through the darkness. The moon waxes and wanes as we may grow apart from our God in heaven sometimes, this just happens naturally, but He always comes back for us if we're willing to look for Him... but He is always ALWAYS there, because he loves us. :)