For some of you who have been lucky enough to receive a card from me, you know I sometimes sign my letters, “Keep smiling and keep looking up.”

That line is added because some days can be very discouraging and despite their unsightliness, I want to remind my readers to smile. Whatever circumstances arise in their lives, there is Someone who cares deeply for both them and what they care about.

One starry, summer night, I laid on the grass in front of my home and looked up. The vastness of space and the infinite number of stars reminded me how insignificant I am to the world, but how indescribably significant I am to God. When I looked up to the night sky above, I heard God’s tiny whisper telling me, “Child, continue to look up.  Look up to me when you are happy.  Look up to me when you are sad.  Look up to me.”

I’ve continued the practice of looking up in the bright sunshine, the dark clouds of rain or snow, but mostly at night under the quiet, serene glow of the stars.  It is during those times my disquieting longings settle. Some times when I can’t sleep, I’ll go outside in my pajamas just to look up at the stars. When I look up, I feel God’s soothing warmth alight on me.

It’s as if His arms break through the layers of sky to cuddle me.  The Holy One, The Perfect One brings calm to my incomplete with His Fully Complete.

And for a moment, standing breathlessly under the sky, I stop my inner grumbling. I rest in Him.  I hear Him say He loves me. “Yes,” He whispers, “you are unraveled, but I am the One that strengthens you. I am the One who finishes you.”

During those times, I trust God will conquer what troubles me – emotional or physical.  I feel Him standing close beside me and can truly say all is well with my soul.

The annoyances of daily life are nothing to Him – who put the world together, who made stars dance in the sky, who provides grass to lay on.  So, when I get unsettled by life’s trouble, I am reminded to look up.

Look up, past the worries – to the life, the beauty that surrounds me. Look up to my Perfecter, the Lifter of my Head. Look up to my God, who prepares for me an eternal home.

To you He says the same: Look up, dear child. Look up.