Stars Over Yosemite

Recently, we took a family trip to Giant Sequoia/ Kings Canyon National Park and Yosemite National Park. We saw some breathtaking scenery and made some lasting memories. We also experienced some of those wonderful “teachable moments.”
One of those occurred when we attended a night time program called “Stars Over Yosemite.” A park ranger escorted our group of around 30 people into the middle of nowhere. There were no lights, and it was totally quiet. The sky was luminous and shone with more stars than you could count. The ranger started his talk by saying, “I’m going to start out by making you feel very small.” He then proceeded to share illustration after illustration of how small the earth really is in comparison to other objects in the solar system, how small our galaxy is in the scheme of deep space, etc….It was mind-boggling. He had a really cool laser pointer that seemed to touch the actual stars like a light saber when he pointed it at the constellations (this scored major points with Jackson and Tyler).
Later, on the drive back to our hotel, we talked about what we had heard. The boys keyed in on how cool the laser pointer was but were also able to tell us about some of the constellations they had learned. Whitney’s thoughts took a different turn. She asked, “What did you guys think when he said, ‘I’m about to make you feel really small?’” They were kind of quiet, so she continued, “It made me think about that verse in Psalm 19:1, about how the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. I thought to myself, “I don’t feel small at all, because I’m in a relationship with the One who made all of this amazing sky. God made the entire universe and still cares about little old me. I didn’t feel small at all. It made me feel extremely important.”
David must have been wrestling with these same thoughts as he wrote in Psalm 8:3-4:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
He made it all. He knows everything about us….yet loves us still.