I have
always been fascinated by the sky and the stars shining like lights in it. Sitting underneath the moonlit sky one night I
reflected on the wonder of God's creations. The
vastness of the space above me and surrounding me was awesome. This verse from the Bible crossed my mind:
"The heavens declare the glory of God." They exhibit His grandeur, His infinite
power and are a continuous testimony of His eternal existence.
The
distances in God's universe are mind boggling. We
measure them by the speed of light which travels at 186,000 miles in one second, or seven
times around this little planet of ours. It
takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. We
can say that the sun is 8 light minutes away. In
a year, light travels about 6 trillion miles (6,000,000,000,000)!
The sun is
an ordinary star - one of 400 billion in our Milky Way galaxy. There are billions of galaxies, each with about
100 billion stars each. Our galaxy is like a
huge pinwheel of stars and gas and dust. It
is 100,000 light years across. Our solar
system is tucked away in a remote corner of an arm of this pinwheel. The universe is estimated at 10-15 billion light
years across. We float in space like a mote
of dust in the sky.
All these
heavenly bodies are moving in a complex orderly grace, following precise laws of nature
set in place by the Master Designer -God. Science
has taught us how infinitesimal we are, and as we study the universe we are learning how
infinite God is. Continuing my reflections, I
realized how difficult it is to comprehend His greatness with our finite minds. I could only thank Him for the creation of this
beautiful planet with its blue skies, its oceans of liquid water, cool forests and soft
meadows - the only place in His huge cosmos to have life.
- Reshma
Karipineni
