Noticing More Beauty

It pours down rain on my drive to church.  The early trip without the family, to fill the commitment of the making of coffee for those who gather. As I pass through the storm, I take a glance at what has passed behind. I am startled by the reflection of a brilliant rainbow in my mirror.  I go on with my drive and forget the bow-of-promise as I perform the sabbath duties. I hear the movie quote from the sermon, "It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories... The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? ..." (Lord of the Rings) More water falls, but this time down my face. Even the fictional words barb the heart so raw with the awareness of our reality - too ugly for a big-screen production. The youthful pastor...

"I asked God to humiliate me.. . " I will my facial muscles to stay relaxed as the tall son begins, but inside I hear myself scream, " No! Don't ask for that! He might give it to youl l!" "Oh," I calmly respond, "why is that?" He explains. "At church recently, the preacher talked about humility. I realize that a lack of humility is what has gotten me into a lot of the bad situations I am in right now, so I thought I should ask God to help me work on it." I smile and nod. I want to applaud his desire for God's shaping, but I can't help but wonder if he knows what he is saying. Is it a homeschooler's error in word choice? Surely he means "humble me" not "humiliate me." Most of us have been foolish enough to ask to learn humility, but even a fool knows not to ask to be humiliated! And maybe I recoil from the word and what it could mean for him because I realize I identify with it right ...

In the years that I helped out with the local Joni & Friends chapter, there was a story that was shared to help explain what it was like to have a baby with special needs. Preparing to have a baby was likened to planning a trip to Italy. But those chosen to have a child with disability get to their destination and find themselves in Holland instead. They have to choose to see the beauty in their actual location instead of the one that they always dreamed of. This story keeps running through my head lately. But we have not been given a life affected by special needs. My plot twist involves the expectations of raising kids in a Christian home. Was I too ambitious? I thought I had realistically planned for the "Holland." I didn't think I had camped on the idyllic Italian outcome. I knew things wouldn't be perfect - I knew I'd have to content myself with tulips and windmills over gondolas and Venetian masterpieces. But this... This feels like g...