Cropped

While walking past a car the other day, I thought I saw a serene country scene, sort of resting on the dashboard. As I approached, eagerly straining to see the landscape that had been so wonderfully captured in this photograph, I realized it wasn’t a picture at all, but the rear-view mirror on the other side of the car. I was simply seeing a snippet of what was behind me. 

What was the difference? Cropping. The mirror had so cunningly cut out all of the houses, power lines, and any other bits of city life that were so obviously surrounding me. It’s quite astounding to think about what a little cropping can do for perspective.

I recently was not diagnosed with any particular condition, concerning some strange muscle problems, and all I could do was feel frustration, anger, and the unknown, looming over my weary body. My aching and burning muscles seemed to scream in desperation for something, anything... to put a name to their pains; all to no avail. No answers... yet. 

That day had been filled with multitudes of tears and complete anguish. All I wanted was to have a solution to my problem, and what the doctor did say brought more frustration than anything: the one thing she hypothesized, has no fix. Again--anguish, desperation, grieving to the nth degree. Tears were overflowing, spilling down into my brand new blue pashmina, and visible, physical sobbing took place while I drove home. 

Now I think back to that cropped “picture” of my surroundings. What a work of art. And if we really look into our own situations in life, whatever they may be, I bet we could find little masterpieces all around, surrounding us, waiting to be discovered and reveled in. God, our most loving and sovereign Creator, has hidden clues to His greatness all around us. He has given us little puzzles to piece together throughout the span of our lives, whether they are around us physically, or maybe somehow the pieces have been woven throughout the fabric of our very lives, traversing the many days and months and years that number us. 

I feel so very blessed to know that the many blood tests I did go through came back normal and not problematic. I really couldn’t see that at the very moment of the great revealing; that these results meant great things, marvelous things. I don’t need a kidney transplant, I don’t have chronic blood disorders, I have normally functioning organs, praise God! 

So whatever situation arises in our lives, whether they are small, or seem to be larger than anything this side of the atmosphere, remember to take out your tools and start looking for snippets to crop and frame. Those are the elements in life to remember. Those are the pieces that will always glorify God, that will cause a smile to form upon His fatherly face. It’s a glorious thing when your child is able to look outwardly, from a broken inward situation, and see the proverbial silver lining. And how much greater is it when that person uses this gift--this cropped portrait from within the larger, possibly uglier picture--and gifts it to someone else. A glimmer of faith arises, a soul is reborn. Finding God in common situations is beautiful. Finding God in difficult ones, a miracle.

As the apostle Paul said:

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. 

“It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:6-18

9/11 ponderings

On Saturday, we will be remembering the most tragic of events on American soil ever to take place: 9/11. I remember it like it was yesterday. Nine years ago, I was very pregnant, a Christian School Chaplain, and had an out-of-work husband. I remember walking back to my office when a student came running to me, claiming there were planes crashing into buildings in New York... How we set up rabbit ears with the VCR in the church sanctuary (where the school had its weekly chapel services), and we sat, as a school, and watched on the big projection screen as the second tower spilled down into the city below... I remember hearing how the Pentagon was also targeted, and thought about how only a few short days before this attack, my own father--and hundreds of other local politicians from around the country--were walking the halls of that “fortress”... I remember the counseling that took place... The lives forever changed... How hard it was for my husband to find a job... The list goes on.

So now there is talk of a Mosque being built near Ground Zero. Of course, where there is talk of this nature, there is exponentially more controversy, swarming like an angry legion of hornets. I don’t--nor will I ever--claim to be an authority on most things political. I don’t claim to be someone who is fit to comment or advise on anything government-related. What I do proclaim, though, is that I am born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, and can only testify to these things which I know to be true. Many will question my statement, saying, how do I know these things to be true? Well, my response can only be answered with a question. How do you know you are breathing air with an appropriate amount of oxygen? Well, for one thing, you’re not dying. You’re not gasping for breath.  You are, in fact, very much alive, and feel right. “How I know” is something that is a gift. Like the air we breathe. When someone receives the gift of faith, that person is forever changed. Okay, back to the topic...

Many people who have weighed in on this controversy have done so very boldly, opposing anything having to do with Muslims. People are acting out of pain and fear: pain they still feel from this near decade-long injury, and fear that it--or worse--may happen again. We, as Americans, have been injured. 

No living thing takes to injury very well. Think about a dog who maybe has his foot caught in a trap. When a compassionate soul happens upon such a situation, that typically kind-natured animal will lash out, trying to attack its would-be savior. Most often the victim is so inwardly focused that anything external seems threatening. Snapping violently at the hand that could help is a natural tendency. And natural as it may be, what it truly is is selfish. This is not to say that “selfish” is a nasty term; sometimes the pain is so excruciating there is no seeing past it by ourselves. This means looking only at your pain and doing everything in your power to at the very least, maintain the status quo. It means not looking out to anyone or anything for help. It means festering. It ultimately means loss.

While there is something to be said about pain and suffering, there is also much to be said about peace and love--God’s love. As someone who is striving daily to inherit the love that is God while still here on this earth, I had a revelation today. I would like to share it now, as an illustration of the bigger picture, whether that is in response to a proposed Mosque in New York, a homeless person in a small town no one has ever heard of, or within your own family. 

I was driving through my city today, running various errands that took me through some of the more colorful, or interesting areas that I don’t normally see. I began looking at the many people out and about on this windiest of days. I watched: a young man rushing across a street to the nearest liquor store--his long hair whipping across most of his face; an old woman with missing teeth, extremely outdated glasses and a filthy jacket standing idly while waiting for a city bus; a long line of school children processing from the museum downtown; the librarian, watching an obviously drunken man checking out a book; a family taking a walk along Lake Michigan.

While driving, I was listening to a sampler CD playing Kim Walker’s “How He Loves Us,” and two other songs. As the time ticked by, the CD kept rotating these three songs, and the words became overwhelming to me. I am a singer. I sing in the car, like many people do, I admit it. But today, as I was singing, I realized something. I was singing this song with the greatest passion for all of these people.  As I sang the words over them, this tremendous love for each of them exploded from my heart. I realized that most of the time when I have talked or sung about God’s love, I have been thinking of His love as for only those of us who call ourselves Christians. (As I write this, I can’t get past what I have just declared. I am floored.) 

“Oh, how He loves us, oh, oh, how He loves us, how He loves us, oh.” 

God looks down on every individual here on this life-sustaining planet and calls out, 

“I... LOVE... YOU!” 

It is for this reason that we, as born again believers are here, in this place, to reach out and send that love in the most tangible of ways to the ones who have not yet received this gift. Oh, how He loves US ALL. 

So regardless of brick and mortar and what it could stand for, what we do in response to anything should be this: love. Micah 6:8 says it best: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

We must remember that this is not God’s heaven. This is sin-infested earth. It was tainted by the fall, and will not reach perfection until Jesus brings it about. And whether a Mosque is built close to Ground Zero or not is irrelevant in the grand scheme of eternity. Is it insensitive? Yes, I believe so. Will many people lash out, like the wounded creature that they are? Yes again. But how will we, as those called by Christ, act at that point? Will we stand beside them, shaking our fists in the air, and perpetuating hate, or will be be the ones standing there, not ashamed to say, “Look, I know the pain you’re in, but I know a GREAT Physician,” move in boldly, and remove the paw from the trap.