Song of the month: You Do All Things Well by: Tenth Avenue North

“Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.” (Matt13:16)

Sometimes I think that this life is one giant parable, teaching us about God’s reality.

An over excited driver ran me and my children off the road just before Christmas, redecorating my Honda.  A giant, and I mean giant,  Eucalyptus tree branch flew across the road and landed on my friend’s truck as she drove me away from the car repair shop. A metal ladder came crashing off the car in front of me on the freeway as I took Liberty to school, challenging my Anakin Skywalker racing-reflex skills… My husband fell down a flight of stairs, and a non-trick- two gallon bottle of water appeared to jump off our refrigerator onto our kitchen floor as I watched Tv….who needs T.V right?  Anyone want to hang out with me?

This all happened over a two week period. If I was a tribal woman, I think I would have assumed I’d made the gods angry and spent my Christmas vacation looking for a virgin to sacrifice. But I didn’t. Instead I put on a backpack and the baby carrier and went out for a beautiful Idyllwild hike with the fam. Then guess what happened on the hike?….Don’t worry nothing dramatic…not for us anyway. But for the poor fluffy squirrel we saw whooshed away in front of our eyes, by one very hungry Hawk…there was some drama, I’m sure. My Liberty stopped short in front of me and yelled knowingly, “Mommy, mommy, where’s that Hawk taking the squrrel?!…ummm…Peyton and I just stared at each other, mouths open in a half laugh, vacillating between the wonder and horror and privilege of seeing such a thing.

Everyday, small bits of heaven and hell are colliding all around us, if only we’d look. God seems to like tasters..If you don’t believe in hell, watch the news…If you don’t believe in heaven, watch the sunset. Just small tasters…like the beer tasters offered at BJ.’s Pizza before you actually commit to the real deal.  Humanity’s short tap dance on Earth’s stage seems to have disco ball ready to descend at any moment and show us a hundred new dimensions to our lives. FREAKY?…..or 80’s?…or both?

Unfortunately, most days it really seems like someone turned out the lights on the spiritual world swirling around me.  Then a hawk and squirrel incident  …Yes I think a hawk swooping into my space to carry off his dinner in front of my eyes is a spiritual thing, like a nudge on my shoulder from God saying, “Hey chick, you think that’s amazing? I made it… but in my reality it will turn out better for the squirrel.”

God’s reality…Hmmm an interesting concept for someone who lives on this side of heaven and has not yet had the privilege of seeing with her eyes all that she believes. I’m still stuck in the place where the magnificent and horrible share the same space and argue with each other, every second’s a tick-tock-tick-tocking controversy. More often than not I take very little notice of the fact there is another reality present in this present world.  Or that things are happening outside my control and for a purpose greater than me simply recognizing there is a spiritual realm right in front of me. What? This stuff happening to me isn’t all about me?????

But every once in awhile I get to see it, like my breath on frosted glass, suddenly something happens that makes me aware of God’s reality and I stop short just like my five year old did and say,  “Hey God, what’s going on in that situation?”  Perhaps the answer is too horrible for Him to explain clearly to me, or perhaps he does explain it in a tender tone. One thing these God reality checks do for me is make me realize I don’t have to walk around in the dark. Anytime I want I can switch on the light and take notice of all that God is doing around me, through me, in spite of me, in others, for the world He loves.

Some might see the recent incidents in my life as spiritual attacks, skeptics might call them coincidence, yet every people group has a concept of God’s (or gods) reality. That moment where the light switch gets turned on and for a brief second we see things… differently.  For me, these cray-cray moments are opportunities to see clearly that there is in fact much more to our world than what meets the eye.

….Hey, who turned out the lights?…Nobody, we just gotta open our eyes sometimes, listen to the parable, understand God’s reality.