What Do You See?

You have likely played those games where someone hands you a piece of paper with black and white shapes and asks you, “What do you see?”  Most people, at first, see nothing but blobs; non-descript blotches of black and white.  But, if you stare at the paper long enough; if you will take the time to focus your eyes and concentrate your mind, you will see an image. What makes the difference? I don’t have a clue. Who do you think I am, a scientist?  But I thought about that exercise, of opening our eyes to see differently things that are right before us,  in the context of living in desperate times, or at least the part about which I have a tiny clue.

This week I encountered three situations faced by people I know and love.  What I learned from each of these dear friends is that the way to face desperate times; the way to live through tragic circumstances, is to re-focus.  One person said to me that, upon learning very bad news about the future, “you cry until you can cry no more, and then you start looking at what can be.”  His point was that, while he could spend his time “beating myself up” dwelling in despair, it wasn’t going to change the outcome. Instead, he started to think about “what could be” instead of “what could not be.”  His approach allows him to, first of all, just function. But, more important, this approach allows him to function in a way which helps him to discover pictures of joy and happiness in circumstances where others would just see random blotches of black and white.

The second lesson I learned from my friend was that if you look at life from the proper perspective you see how God is at work in the midst of our times of despair.  My friend taught me about the importance of faith.  His description of the varied ways he saw God connecting the dots to make a beautiful picture made me think of a twist on an old analogy. One of the blessings that God brings people in times of despair is that they get to see not just the knots on the backside of the quilted picture, but they get to see glimpses of the beautiful picture on the other side.  Eyes of faith see life differently. How is it that the blotches of black and white reveal a picture when we look with eyes of faith?  What makes the difference?  God. God gives the glimpses which happen when we re-focus our eyes to discover truths which really matter in a beautiful way.  There still will be tears in those eyes, but the tears of sorrow will be mixed with tears of joy when those eyes see glimpse of truth.  “Open my eyes that I may see/Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;…Silently now I wait for Thee; Ready my God, Thy will to see; Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.” (“Open MY Eyes, That I May See”, Clara Scott)