Shine Your Joy to the World Around You

Discover the beautiful practice of noticing tiny moments of joy hidden throughout your day in this heartwarming episode of Create Harmony. Your host Sally Burlington introduces a special summer series called "Play It Forward," designed to help you embrace a more lighthearted spirit that naturally spreads to the world around you.

Have you ever considered trading "adulting" for "childing"? That's exactly what we're doing in this episode as we inaugurate our summer story time tradition. Just like when you were in kindergarten sitting cross-legged on the carpet while your teacher read aloud, we're inviting you to reconnect with your inner child through children's literature. Sally reads "When God Made Light" by Matthew Paul Turner, a touching story that reminds us how we all carry an inner light meant to shine brightly.

By alternating between guided nature visualizations and children's stories, the Play It Forward series aims to help you shed your cares and worries, allowing your natural light to shine through and illuminate everyone you encounter.

Ready to reconnect with childlike wonder and spread that joyful energy to others? Listen now, then share how you're finding little moments of joy in your own life!

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Chapters

• 0:07 Welcome to Create Harmony
• 0:50 Play It Forward Summer Series
• 1:33 Story Time: When God Made Light
• 5:10 Spreading Light to Others
• 8:05 Closing and Next Episode Preview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast. So our focus here is all of the joy that is around us all the time. It's just nestled in little things. It's the taste of your first sip of coffee in the morning, the way the wind sounds when it rustles the leaves on the trees outside it might be the laugh of your child. The way my puppy's face looks when she's running towards me in the yard. It's the softness of your bed when you lie down each night, or the smell of dinner cooking on the stove. Each of those things holds a tiny piece of joy and it only takes a moment to notice it. So we are taking those moments to be more attentive to all of those little joys right here each week.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Now this is episode 128, and I am Sally Burlington, your host, and we are in the summer here in North Carolina, where I live, and during the summer we're sort of changing things up with a little bit of a different rhythm, because we are doing a series that I call play it forward not pay it forward, but play it forward. So we are really leaning into the spirit of play, because summertime is all about fun and outdoor play and going swimming and going on trips and also. So we're really leaning into that spirit and hoping that if you feel more lighthearted and you sort of put your cares to the side, that that energy will spread to the world around you and all of the world around you will be more lighthearted and playful and fun loving, and just the world will be lighter. In that way we are bringing the light to the world around us. So the rhythm that we're doing is one week we're doing a guided visualization which hopefully will be calming and settling to your spirit, and each of those visualizations will have a nature, theme or something summary. And then the next week we're doing what I call story time, and so this is our first of the story times, and story time is going to be exactly like it was when you were a child, when you were in kindergarten and you were sitting on the carpet and your teacher was reading to you. We, instead of adulting, here we're going to be doing what I call childing. We're going to look back at that inner child and really try to channel some of that energy. So I am going to literally read you a story from a children's book every other week and hopefully the spirit of that will be enlivening and help you just play it forward to the world around you.

Speaker 1: 2:38

So our first story is a book called when God Made Light by Matthew Paul Turner, and it goes like this Let there be light. That's what God said. And light began shifting and then started to spread. It flickered and dashed, it blinked and it flashed. Light poured and light spilled. It bolted and splashed. Light glared and glimmered. It flared and sparked. And whenever light shined, dark stopped being dark. In the beginning, space became bright Because God filled it with twinkles of yellowy, white, brilliant stars gleamed, swirls of light streamed in that once empty space, a galaxy beamed. When God made light, a universe lit up, a dazzling display of big, shiny stuff. And all that light, every bright, golden hue, is the very same light that God put inside of you. Now. God made the sun to light up our days, to cover our planet with light-filled rays, to make summers warm and winters not too cold, to help flowers bloom and turn wheat fields to gold, to burst in the morning at the first crack of dawn, to rise up slowly and beam across lawns. And when the sun shines.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Here's what you should do. Shines, here's what you should do. Go run and have fun. Play a game, maybe two. Go skipping or flipping, or down a slide slipping, or, if it's too hot, in a pool, just go dipping, dance in the grass. Go climb in the trees. Build castles with sand. Face the wind, feel its breeze. Fill castles with sand. Face the wind, feel its breeze. Eat berries and cherries in a patch, pick strawberries, or whistle out loud with a choir of canaries.

Speaker 1: 5:04

And once in a while, when the playing is done, look up at the sky and thank God for the sun. And when the light fades and a day ends too soon, wave goodbye to the sun and hello to the moon. Yes, god made the moon to brighten the night sky, to reflect the sun's shine, to be our world's nightlight. But beneath a dark sky there are things you can do. Just bring mommy or daddy and a flashlight or two, raise a tent and go camping or through the woods, stamping, romping and stomping on paths made for tramping. Catch fireflies in jars. Go gazing at stars, try counting and seeing how many there are. See constellations, shapes and formations. Find a lion or bear amid heaven's creations. Sing songs round campfires, make marshmallow s'mores, let grandpa tell stories, wage flashlight wars.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Now, when God made light, god made all different kinds, some sparkles, some flares. But all light shines. It flashes and bolts when lightning is crashing or bursts through the sky, when a comet is dashing. And if you ever feel scared in the darkness of night, remember the shadows are no match for God's light. Climb into bed, sleep soundly and dream and know that inside you God's glow is a gleam, because you're just like the sun and the moon in the sky as lustrous as twinkles that dazzle the eye. You're as splendid as lightning when it flashes.

Speaker 1: 7:08

So bright because on the day you were born, god said Let there be light. Because on the day you were born, god said let there be light. And wherever you go, dark will stop being dark. Shimmer and shine. Be a beacon. So bright Because when God made you child, god made light. Thanks so much for joining us for story time today and thanks for participating in our Play it Forward series. Hopefully you'll take the energy of God making light and putting it in you and spreading that light to the world around you, to all the people you see and the friends and family you touch as you go through your day. And hope you'll come back next week as we continue our Play it Forward series. And until next time, peace, thank you.