Last Wednesday, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday here in Honduras with the sweetest second family. Birthdays have always been moments of pause for me, where you think about everything that has happened in the last year, and you dream about what the next year holds. I get that I am still young, and there’s a lot left on this road for me, but the past five years have brought a lot of change that I didn’t anticipate and wouldn’t trade.

We ate pupusas and played Pictionary Spanish style and after cleaning up, I cut an extra slice of brownie pie to take up to Panchito. I walked up the ranch and was struck by the size of the sky. Here, I swear there are more stars than anywhere else. There is less man-made light to compete and the sky is littered with five thousand sparkles, each twisting to shine in their own way. It catches your breath, and you get a little disoriented, standing up straight, head dropped back looking at the painted sky.

Two years ago, on that same day, I sat in a gabezo on the Belmont lawn and listened to a song  about stars. It was a birthday gift, from Kyle and his residents. I remember looking up at the sky that night to see just a few stars, wet hair on my back. I was wearing a navy and black dress, still damp from my baptism that night at church where I committed to live a life by Christ. And since that moment, that song, the stars, this day, it all became a little more special than before.

Looking up at the sky last Wednesday felt like a sure whisper to my heart, I am still after you. It was a birthday gift, this time from our Good Lord. “The stars remind us that we’re not alone. The stars remind us we’re not in control.” I’ve heard these lyrics and sang them so many times, but the truth of them remains. Looking up at the sky can make you feel so small, but in our smallness we are reminded how great our God is. That he would seek you out, speak life into your heart, have a plan for you that matters in the grand scheme of His Kingdom, that He invites, He is calling you. You are small, but you are mighty because the God who goes before and behind you is mighty. The stars remind us that in a vastness of this place, that God reigns, coordinating every moment so that at the end of the day, I would be standing before Him, staring up at the night sky, renewed by His pursuit of me.