Keep On Praying. A friend of mine signed her email to me this way, KOP. I am really happy I can help her this way. She is in a very high-powered and highly stressful job right now and a lot of people depend on her personal involvement in most of their activities. Because she is really good at what she does. But seriously, how many pieces of one’s self can a person divide up each day?

So that is what I am praying about today. If you think there is only so much of you to go around to help people, you are already behind the eight-ball. The definition of who you are and what you can do is therefore, from the get-go, limited.

But what happens if you think of yourself as a reflection of Spirit? The unlimited, infinitely resourceful divine Spirit? As a reflection, you don’t “do” anything on your own, you reflect. Can a mirror decide what it can and can’t reflect from the original image? No, it has to mirror exactly what the image is.

So it is with each of us as spiritual reflections of the One Spirit. All the abilities we need to do every day, all the capacity we must have, comes to us without diminishment from the unlimited Divine.

Years ago I remember reading an inspirational story about an oil lamp. The basis of the story is from the Bible, that of 10 virgins who were taking their oil lamps to meet their bridegroom in the middle of the night. Half of the virgins had oil in their lamps and the other half did not (huh? why bring an empty lamp to a midnight fiesta??). So when the bridegroom calls everyone to the festivities, the oil-deprived virgins beg for oil from their oil-rich sisters. “Not enough for all of us…if we give some to you, none of us will make it to the party,” was the response.

Maybe this sounds harsh, but the inspirational story I read gave me some very helpful insight. What the bridegroom expected at the party was the LIGHT from the oil lamps. Without oil, there is no light. The party is a bust and nobody wins. The virgins with the oil understand this. Unfortunately, the other virgins did not and came very unprepared…they were literally in the dark.

When any of us does a good job or is a good friend, co-workers and friends want to be around us…they are attracted to our light of goodness. Who doesn’t want to be around people who make them feel good?

Back to the oil lamp: the light is the effect of the oil source. So what is the oil that each of us needs to maintain and secure, in order to have light? In my favorite spirituality book, Science and Health , “Oil” is defined this way:

“OIL Consecration; charity; gentleness; prayer; heavenly inspiration.”

Ooooh, what light can shine from this oil! No wonder people are attracted to this light. Our responsibility is to continually replenish our “oil”. How? Looking to the Spirit as our Source of all goodness and love, loving our fellow beings regardless of how they act, living a life of grace. All these expressions, beginning with the acknowledgement of and devotion to the One Creator (who we reflect), add to our storage of oil. And with this unlimited source of oil, we can shine without fail.

When you think about oil this way, how could the 5 virgins even give oil to their sisters? Prayer, heavenly inspiration, love for fellow man, gentleness, consecration to good — these are individual expressions, unique to the person expressing them. So even if the virgins wanted to share their oil, they really couldn’t.

The oil is for each of us to increase. Our light is for each of us to share.

I am sharing my light with my good friend…and I know that she has infinite resources for her oil and nothing can diminish or divide up that supply. So she can KOS…Keep On Shining too!

Read more from this blogger at Practical Spirituality .