Gratitude

Having a truck nearly crush you gives you a different perspective on life. It mixes a serious sense of being grateful for even being able to walk and breathe with an underlying uneasiness that comes along with having been through a violent collision.

I imagine I'll be working on both in therapy for days to come. And surely I will be on the other side of this event better equipped and having been transformed.

For now-I'm sore and shaky. And grateful.

My left shoulder may have a tear in the rotator cuff. The alternatives of being severely maimed or dead are worse-so I'll take it and smile.

The humor I've found at this point is in imagining that I became like one of the Wonder Twins in the old Justice League cartoons from the seventies. In the moments before the collision God said on my behalf "Form of.......silly putty." Then I bounced around the cabin of the car until it came to rest.

Instead of newsprint that rubbed off on the silly putty when you put it onto the funny papers-the impression of Grace was left upon me. I don't necessarily ascribe to theology that names "everything happening for a reason", or "God doesn't give us more than we can handle". I think those are not the most helpful approach to any event.

Instead I think of John chapter 9 where Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who had been blind from birth. The disciples are in a hurry to answer the question "Why?". They ask Jesus-"Who sinned? This man or his parents that he should be born blind?" Why is he blind in other words.

Jesus answered that this man had been born blind so that God might be glorified. Then he proceeds to spit in the dirt to make mud, rubs it on the mans eyes and he is then able to see. So the healing of the man is a response not to "Why?" so much as it is an answer to the question "Now what?" as in we see that this man is hurting and disabled-now what are we going to do about it? The answer Jesus would seem to suggest in the text is that we respond to the person in need to glorify God and don't ask why-we just seek to fill the need that a person exhibits given what we have at hand to do so.

So I ask this question of myself-one I alluded to in my last blog-Now what? What will I be able to do in response to this event? How will I be able to do it? How might I glorify God through this experience? I know I've already been given opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with several people as a result. Would I have done so otherwise? Maybe in a different way but probably I would have.

So even as I show signs of anxiety when in the car, and even as my shoulder aches-I say to God. Thank you Jesus. And ask God "Will you please help me to bring you glory-and shape this silly putty of a man into a servant in whom you can be well pleased? Thanks."

Grace to you and Peace in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Dwight