Crown Center currently has on display numerous quilts, created piece by piece by talented ladies and gentlemen throughout the Kansas City area. As I paused at each one last weekend, I admired the craftsmanship and studied how the blocks were created and placed to draw the eye to a pleasing piece of art. The designers of each of these quilts placed the splotches of colored fabric in such a way to produce a one-of-a-kind masterpiece!

These quilt masterpieces reminded me of another masterpiece seen in Guinea, West Africa. While the van we were riding in was being repaired, I had the opportunity to look up in the night sky at another one-of-a-kind masterpiece, stars. Bright dots of gold glitter which seemed to be so close to the ground that you felt like you could just reach up and grab them. Yeah, we have stars shining in the sky in Kansas City and stars which seem brighter in rural Missouri, but the stars in this undeveloped nation were spectacular! A dab of yellow on a black piece of canvas, arranged in such a way that gave anyone present a time to just utter an "ahh" in response to the splendor.

I imagine Abraham standing outside his tent one night, looking upward and marveling at the pitch black canvas that towered over him, with the shining orbs of light scattered throughout. He was recounting the promise that his Heavenly Father told him several years earlier, that he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky. He remembered the conversations he and Sarah had, wondering how this could be since there were just so many stars! And yet he and Sarah believed that promise, even trying to help God along the way! Even after Isaac's birth, I'm sure they talked about it a lot...over dinner, between disciplining the boys, while enjoying the early morning cup of coffee before everyone else woke up, and during the one-on-one time with God in prayer. During times of heartache and pain, they only had to look up at the stars at night to remember God's promise, the collection of saints that completes His masterpiece!

Are you a star, a member of Abraham's offspring? Is it a brightly shining light, redeemed by Christ's blood poured out for you or dimmed by the outside interference that bombards the faith walk? Or is your star not shining at all because you have placed your faith in the "I can do it myself" attitude? This week let's join together in prayer, thanking the Creator of "stars" for His promise of eternal life, but also asking Him to give us the strength to peel off the film of sin and pride to enable our star to be burning spots of light in our community, workplace, and home.

Enjoying the ride,

Jane