Mistaken Miracle

As the year quickly landslide's its beginning, I am caught off guard. I have yet to figure out what went right and wrong with last year, and I wish I could catch time even if I only get to hold it for a moment before it runs away again. I am searching and searching the facts of this past year and I keep coming up short on facts but full on feelings. Feelings of great sadness and immeasurable joy. Moments of gentle hope and jagged despair. Too much too fast and too little too late pile up on one side of the scale, while relentless grace and salvation’s love pile up on the other side of the scale. The past year is over and done with me, but I am not over and done with it. My life must weigh out and matter for something or someone. The scale teeters.

I realize suddenly with full arms that I am my own teetering scale. The strain of holding experiences and dreams and truths and myths. I am either in the middle of a great mistake or a great miracle. Sometimes I feel like I am God's first mistake. He could not possible have meant to do this or that. He left me on the stove too long or forgot to pick me up from school, either way... He dropped the ball, or would it be the world? Anyway.... Seconds later, I am cornered by my pride. The arrogance to think that every other human is meager in comparison to me, God's favorite. The scale teeters.

Instead of being a mistake, maybe I--we-- are not what we think. I am reminded of those silly posters that were sold in rickety old mall kiosk when we were younger. You remember? Those pink and blue warped images. I vividly recall hoards of people standing there gawking with wide open mouths and awkward faces at those silly images. All trying desperately to see the image, each one wanted to be the first in the group it find it. "You see it? I see it! Wait, no I lost it." The dude running the kiosk approaches, "Now, look at the picture, don't see nothin' right. Now look at it but don't look at it." What is he talking about? "Let your eyes go out of focus, you'll see it." Thanks, dude. Nothing like a philosopher running a kiosk. I always got excited when I finally saw it, even if it was a poor excuse for a flying eagle looking thingy. We try so hard to focus and make it all work. We initially strive for perfect and eventually fight for just getting by. The images around us are so out of focus. "Let your eyes go out of focus. You'll see it."

Just because the year is done does not mean the lessons learned and the life lived, booked ended by a date, is done. The mistake is to take the easy way out, throw a tantrum that I am now well-versed in recreating thanks to Amelia, and tap out of this apparent mess I have made. The mistake is not sticking around long enough to see how my Glorious God will make a miracle. Life is not a timeline, a history book, or seamless race. It might be more like a picture, coming in and out of focus. The scale keeps teetering, and part of pretending to be a grown-up is learning to live with my scale as it rocks back and forth. Life is too short and too fast to not embrace the mistaken and believe for the miraculous.