The past few weeks, since I’ve blogged, have been like most weeks down here–full of many sources of frustration tempered/made tolerable by the many sources of beauty all around (technically one “true” source of beauty but in many forms). One day last week was especially full of frustration…..at least it was for me. I felt like I spent the whole day waiting–waiting for my daughter and my mother and the fast food place and a much-expected phone call and then, to top it all off, a long and annoying train which just so happened to cross the tracks right in front of our vehicle as we were nearing home at the end of a most tiring and trying day. “A train!?! You’ve just got to be kidding me! I grew up in this area and I’ve never, ever seen a train here!” I vocalized loudly and angrily.
And, as I went back in my head over the words that had just come out of my mouth (hoping and praying none of them were profane), I heard my daughter say happily/excitedly, “Yeah, Mom, a train. Isn’t it amazing!?! I just can’t believe it!” Wow, were we in very different places in that moment! While I saw just one more super big annoyance, my daughter saw the very first “real” train she’d ever seen in her life moving up and down the tracks. And I do mean “up” and “down.” The train that stopped us in our “tracks” stopped right at the crossing and actually went back and forth on the tracks in front of us. And this was a first for me. I had, of course, seen trains cross tracks in front of me, but I had never before seen them completely switch directions. So, I then seemed to find a way to get over being delayed again and just enjoy the moment…..my daughter’s first train in action and my first train “switch-a-roo.”
And though it wasn’t tangible, as the railroad crossing bars lifted and we crossed the tracks (seeing the train actually parked on our immediate right), it felt almost as if God had a hand on the top of my right shoulder squeezing it gently to encourage me all over again to slow down and absorb the “little big” things down here. And, as I thought more about how my daughter’s perspective had immediately changed my own, I realized yet again the importance of dying to oneself daily, minute by minute/second by second really. All because that train meant something to this little girl whom I so cherish, it began to mean something to me…..something positive that is. And realizing this has helped me to see where I continue to fall short here.
The people down here all around me, even those who would say they are not people of God, mean something big to him; and I say that God means something big to me. Thus, everyone around me, even those who seem to have been put in front of me just to help me bang the stuffing out of my big toe (or stop me in my “tracks”), should be someone whom I view as significant–as completely worth stopping for. And I don’t feel that way nearly enough. Jesus sure felt that way. When he was strolling along with his disciples and other followers and “bumped” into a funeral procession in the town of Nain, Israel, the tears of a grieving widow on her way to bury her one and only son stopped him in his tracks; and he laid his hand on that son, bringing him back to life and giving him back to his mother. Talk about changing the direction of someone’s tracks!
No, the folks all around us, especially those who are so very different from us or who are in seasons of life down here very different from ours, are not annoyances (or at least shouldn’t be). They are the reason we are here. And if we, God’s people, don’t choose to serve as a reflection of who he has revealed himself to be, then who will?
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