A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a close family friend and neighbor who said, over hot tea at my house of course, that she really wished we had met sooner. We, after all, have lived in our same neighborhood for over twenty years and she’s lived here for a really long time as well, but we only just met and became close over the past couple of years. I too have had the same thought–“Why didn’t we meet sooner?” This particular friend is a wonderful young woman whose faith is paramount in her life; and she really loves my “tween” girl (and the rest of us too of course). So, why didn’t God see fit to engineer the circumstances so that we could have met each other and developed a relationship sooner? I’ve had similar thoughts regarding the timing of meeting my husband and having our daughter. But, as hard as I try to understand the rhyme and/or reason (as we say), I cannot seem to find any way to do so.
This conversation our friend and I had about timing has resulted in a realization about which I’m not proud at all. I realized that when I’ve taken a step back from everyday life to think about how things have played out over the years, I’ve had a strong tendency to see an existence full of holes. I’ve seen things like empty chairs where treasured family members used to sit, gaps that once-close friends used to stand in for me/my family, huge “breaks” in a once-thriving career in higher education that appears far gone now…..and the list could go (and has often gone) on and on. As ungrateful as it probably does sound, holes such as these seem to have caught my eye far too often when I reflect back on life here.
Today, though, I thankfully had another realization as I reflected on all of this. I do not worship a God of “holes” but a God of the “whole.” I worship a God who sees it all and who hears it all and who knows it all. And when he looks at me and my life, as flawed as I/it is, he doesn’t see any holes–he instead sees his child as whole. Jesus did this for me, for us. Jesus filled every empty space. Jesus made it all right again because he finished all the works that we will never be able to complete down here in this world.
So, I need to try really hard to not allow myself to become overly focused on life’s “holes,” those seasons here that simply are no more; as our focal point cannot be our loved ones who have moved on to a different and far better realm, nor should it be our friendships that seem not to have endured years of seasons or our careers that have morphed into something far different than anything we ever had imagined. Our focus simply must be on the only One who truly knows the whole picture–the view none of us is yet fully equipped to see. If we could actually handle the sight of the whole, I do believe God might just allow us a glimpse; some things, though, the most real things, are too much for us in our current state of being.
And now, I’ll return to that original question, the one that seemed to take me down this “whole” train of thought (I do seldom get tired of punning). Exactly why did it take us so very long to meet that most lovely young Jesus-focused woman down the street? Well, I still don’t know; but I do know who does. And I know that he, our great and loving God, has indeed used her to fill a hole in my daughter’s life; and, when I do reflect back on life here, holes such as these are the kind I really want to catch my eye.
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