Significance

“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” - Psalms 56:8

Just how special are you? A clue comes from modern pathology science which has discovered the unique, special mark that each person carries within their DNA. A recent crime story took this simple fact one step further as investigators solved an abduction and murder case involving a 5 year old girl by analyzing the tear stains on the passenger side of her killer’s car. There, within those stains, was found the unmistakable proof of the little girl’s DNA identity. How poignant that this little girl’s tears solved her own murder case. How incredibly powerful is the knowledge that our tears are uniquely laced with our own one-of-a-kind personhood.

In ancient times, we are told that mourners at funerals would collect their tears in little bottles and place them with the body upon burial. Evidence of this has been found in tombs in Rome and Palestine sometimes in great profusion. From this we can flesh out the picture of Psalm 56:8 where God is said to collect our tears in His bottle; or as the indelible stains upon the pages of our record. Our tears are uniquely our own, and our God knows them all.

Two lessons come clear to me upon reflection on this truth. One, each one of us is completely different from all other persons who have ever walked on the earth or will take breath in this world. When the Scriptures talk about a victim’s blood crying out from the ground for justice, we know now that every drop of our blood has our name on it. We are imprinted from birth with a mark that sets us apart from all others. When lost in a large crowd of thousands or imagine ourselves swallowed up amidst the millions of China, we need never lose track of our own unique significance in the eyes of God. And, in fact, He has numbered the very hairs of our head. He sees the sparrow fall but proclaims we are of far greater worth. Such knowledge is too high for me. I cannot attain to it. Yet it is sweetly comforting.

Secondly, God has ordained that we live such lives where tears are inevitable. Sorrow and grief follow in our steps as surely as death follows life. Ever since our expulsion from the garden, pain and suffering are an endemic part of our lives. At one time, my immature thoughts considered pain as either the result of my own poor thought processes or someone else’s. If we were just smart enough, pain could be avoided altogether. Either that or pain was just a result of some bad luck which, like lightning, strikes without cause or warning: a twist of cruel but random fate. I see pain and suffering now as more a constant part of the fabric of our lives: as destined for us as earning our bread by the sweat of our brow.

Yet God, Himself, stepped into our world and took on the limitations and pain of man. Dorothy Sayers wrote, “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine… He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”* We, too, can walk this vale of tears and find it all worthwhile. Especially as we know we are uniquely significant. Not only that, but we are hovered over by the lover of our souls, one who has experienced all the limitations of the flesh, who keeps a record of all our tears until the day when all sorrow shall cease; no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying when He will wipe away every tear.

*Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949), 4.

Completely Loved

“Henceforth I call you not servants; … but I have called you friends;” -John 15:15

A visit to Mrs. Miller’s 4^th gr. class was on my agenda the other week, and so I went to just observe and be as unobtrusive as possible. Before I could enter the room, however, a display of student work on the door arrested my attention and held me riveted by what I began to read. It was just one of those simple fill-in-the-blank exercises that elementary teachers use to get to know their students and elicit some creative expression. Under a photo of themselves, students filled in the blanks with statements about themselves that ranged from the humorous to the profound. A girl wrote: The important thing about me is that I love God. I love my family and my friends. I love my enemies but not working outside on a very hot day. Oh, that all of us found loving our enemies preferable over working outside on a very hot day. Wow! Another wrote: I like ice cream and vegetables but not mold! The most important think about me is I love Jesus, the Christ. Without a doubt, this most important thing is the most important thing. May we do as well to remember.

While these stabbed me to the heart (all the while standing there with a door half opened), one response brought tears to my soul that came close to seeping out the eyes. A girl wrote: The important thing about me is just being me! I like school so much! I like school because my teacher is fun, and my classmates are all great! I also like all the subjects – they are very fun but not English as much. I also like doing cartwheels (a lot) and playing with my sister! I think we play well together. But the most important thing about me is that I am completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant!!!

I stood there stunned that any 4^th grader would be able to say that they were completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant at that tender age. I wanted to file a letter of complaint against my upbringing and bring suit against all involved because I was never able to say any such thing let alone be able to even spell those words. How many of us could simply sit in wonder at how we might have matured, how different things might have been, and what results might have followed had we been able to say in 4^th grade, I am completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant.

My first suspicion upon further reflection was that the parents had coached their daughter on what to say. And so I interviewed them over the phone trying to ascertain the source of these words that had so gripped my imagination. No, there was no dictation involved. The student had freely transcribed these stirring sentiments on her own. But there had been a conscious and deliberate pouring into this young heart a series of devotions taken from God’s word that underlined these very things. Though I am sure that these parents had invested much of their time in giving their children a sense of their own love and acceptance, in the end it is the Scriptures that brings the deepest and most satisfying answer to the child’s heart. For every child instinctively knows that there are secrets and closets within each of us that are known only to God. Parental love is important, but God’s love is even more important because he knows us, oh, so intimately. Once God’s love is grasped and accepted, we are free to love one another as witnessed by the positive words of affirmation towards all of life throughout this young girl’s responses.

It is my prayer that all our students may come to the full knowledge of our standing with God, the creator of heaven and earth, who stoops and deigns to call us, “friend.” Nothing shows the need more than a recent survey of Knox Co. middle school students which revealed that 17% of them had considered killing themselves, 12% had made a plan, and 7% had made an attempt. How desperate the need.

Grasping the Moment

All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee. KJV Psalms 145:10

I paused for traffic on this golden day, and watched in wonder as a swarm of leaves showered over me in a sudden frolic. Once dead upon the ground they held little fascination, yet in flight they spilled themselves in utter abandon, giving the moment a sudden delight. Just for me. They held their place for a season of green but now, they danced with the wind in a blaze of color for this one brief bit of time, just for me, and were gone.

There are these rich days of autumn in which the sun breaks through and lights up a few glorious hours of our year in which one tree in fifty suddenly grips our sight with special beauty. It bids us stop and just behold the color yellow rippling through a blue sky in a demonstration only nature can provide. And there, on the ground, lay a perfectly reflective puddle of yellow flakes anchored to a blackened trunk; mute testimony that says this is no illusion.

And just when I think I have seen the perfect tree with the most vivid hue, another bids me on to come and drink in an even more impressive scene. Now, orange and green blend in marbled splendor and surpass the dead of yellow. I cannot but dread that I am not able to take it all in; that there are more and better views just around the corner. And then I must cope with a sun that will not stand still, though I command and command, and in a few brief turns of time changes everything.

That sun, the same early morning companion I witnessed setting the eastern sky afire in red just a few days hence, refused to do my bidding then. I searched in vain for someone to come to my precipice and share in the sky splitting display that came but once in time. I needed a witness to verify the absolute glory of it all, but it would not wait, impatient to get about its task, and so the moment was gone, the masterpiece dissolving like some passing mist.

I witnessed, too, this week, a father bending over his two sons with tender but manly embrace. He spoke words of blessing tinged with words of challenge; instruction that gave their little lives direction and purpose; rails of steel laid with unmistakable affection into the hearts and minds of two young boys that would not fail to guide them hence and return them safe again. I looked at young eyes that were open to receive these assurances of grace with a trust affirmed by love and deep respect. The beauty of that moment held me transfixed until it, too, passed by.

This same day bore witness to the magic of two, new born babies who pulled at deep passions within a mother’s breast. Not just ‘a’ mother, but all mothers who happened on the scene. For some brief days, these little ones have the power to command and compel complete attention and cause many to stand in line for just a chance to hold them. What fascination to see such quiet and mute forms evoke such tender joy. It is the cry to grasp this moment of time that passes all too quickly, echoing memories of children grown and gone before.

I want to cling to all these moments for their raw beauty, but they pass before me as live drama defying all efforts to freeze them in place. I am forced to live in awe of the now and practice gratitude for these passing moments of beauty and grace. May God give me eyes to see all such passing scenes of splendor that touch my sleeves each day and enough joy in my heart that is sufficient to pay the proper obeisance.