Seeing Through God's Light

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—
that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

from “The Ponds” by Mary Oliver

A friend posted this section of a poem on Facebook. It speaks to my heart.

I want to be this person, the person who finds the glory in my story.

The truth is five years into my daughter’s life-altering diagnosis of moyamoya disease, there are many days I struggle to see past the world’s imperfections. The weight of what I cannot give her feels overwhelming. My joy tethers to her wellbeing. Life has taught me bad things happen, and fear can win my day.

Last week my husband and son-in-law built a magnificent tree house for my seven-year-old grandson. It is a little over six feet off the ground nestled between two trees with a sturdy ladder that attaches to the frame. It sports a large opening at the top of the ladder as a doorway and a window he can stand at to survey his world.

I smiled as my grandson climbed happily into his new home. Then I noticed there was no handle at the top of the stairs for my grandson to steady himself as he pulled himself over the threshold into the house. My eyes darted next to two small cement steppingstones that were being used to stabilize the ladder at the bottom of the six-foot drop. My head flashed to pictures of my three grandsons wrestling in the tree house, a favorite past time. From there my thoughts shifted to my youngest grandson being knocked out of the doorway, falling to the ground and hitting his head on the small cement paver at the base of the ladder. Joy had left the building. As we headed home that day, my head and my heart were churning.

At what moment, did fear become my lamppost? When did I become so focused on the safety net, I missed the show taking place above?

Was it the day the plane hit the Pentagon floors below the office where my husband was working? Or the day my oldest daughter had a seizure while snorkeling on a family vacation? Was it the moment I learned my 40-year-old brother-in-law’s heart stopped forever after making a goal in a soccer game? Was it the moment I read the words, incurable, progressive disease causing strokes, or the subsequent ten-hour wait in a hospital lobby during my daughter’s first brain surgery? Was it the day we learned she had her first stroke?

At some point, I started focusing on the flaws in my story and lost the dazzle in my story. At the heart of this poem lives an undeniable truth. Life is hard. No one is immune to life’s “imperfections,” but the power we give them in our lives is a choice. I haven’t been choosing so well lately.

I want to be the person who sees the world through God’s light and not through my fear.

And I do.