Inner Sparkle

It's the season for fireworks and lightning bugs. I love the brilliant bursts of color overhead, but I also love the quieter beauty of lightning bugs drifting through the yard. One dazzles. The other invites us to slow down and notice. Both remind me that summer has a way of filling the darkness with light.

Last Thursday, I met a friend for lunch. Before we parted ways, she reached into her purse and handed me a small piece of mica she had brought back from a recent trip to New Mexico. She told me the landscape where she was staying was dotted with mica. Early in the morning, or after a rain, it caught the light and shimmered like sunlight dancing across the surface of a lake. As the day warmed and everything dried, the sparkle seemed to disappear.

Then she said something I've been carrying with me ever since.

"It's like our inner sparkle. Sometimes people can see it, and sometimes they can't. But the thing that makes us sparkle is always there."

I smiled, tucked the little piece of mica into my pocket, and drove back to work.

When I got home that evening, I found myself watching the lightning bugs in my backyard. It struck me that they were preaching the same sermon as that little piece of mica. The mica doesn't create its sparkle; it simply reveals what has always been there. The lightning bugs don't manufacture their light either. They simply shine with what they've been given.

Jesus said, "You are the light of the world... Let your light shine before others.” (Matthew 5:14, 16) He doesn't ask us to create the light. He invites us to reveal it.

Perhaps that's the lesson hidden in a piece of mica and a summer evening filled with lightning bugs. God has already placed within each of us gifts that reflect God's light – kindness, compassion, hospitality, generosity, joy, wisdom, and love. Some days our light shines more brightly than others, but it has been there all along.

So this week, if you happen to catch a fireworks display, enjoy every dazzling moment. And if you're lucky enough to linger outside afterward, watch for the lightning bugs. Let both remind you that God has placed something beautiful within you.

The world doesn't need us to be big, sparkly fireworks every day. Sometimes it simply needs us to be faithful lightning bugs – quietly shining with the light God has already placed within us.

And you never know when your quiet, steady light may help someone else remember that their sparkle has been there all along.