Playdates with God: Perspective

My computer was trying to crash—was churning, churning, churning like slow moving butter—and what should have taken only a couple minutes had consumed my entire day. And my husband’s. Trying to figure out what was wrong. Feeling frustration grow. I was sitting on the couch beside him as he pounded buttons and sighed deep. That’s when he said it.

“You can ruin a computer faster than anyone I know.”

It hurt my feelings. And it made me mad. And I thought he should apologize to me. But here he had spent his whole day trying to help me and I knew there was one thing I needed to appreciate that. Perspective.

I went outside.

I took Lucy Mae and we plunged into the fast-approaching dark. The sun was already down but light lingered and all the harsh edges of life were softened by dusk. I looked up at the smiling moon and felt my spirit quiet. Just from looking up. But thoughts come fast and furious and I wrangled with them. I recited my memory verses to harness the bad ones and lead them away. When I came to the part about my life being hidden with Christ in God, I cried and thanked Him. Hide me, I said. Wrap around me so tight that there is only you. No me. And I cried a little more.

The air was cooler down by the creek and I leaned over the bridge and caught the last glimpses of daylight winking on the water. So this is where the remnant is, I thought, as I watched the last fireflies of summer blink in the trees bending down to dip a finger in the stream.

Up the street we found a black snake spread out across our path. I couldn’t tell if it was alive, so I threw bits of mulch and some small stones at it. It never moved. Lucy wasn’t interested. We decided to go but just then a group of teenagers came walking our way. I warned them about the snake and the girls made girlie noises and they took pictures of it with their phones and shined a light on it. The snake, having enough, crawled away. I was surprised to see it move.

We left the teens and their laughter and I remembered my first real kiss—the first kiss I liked, not the one Mike Johnson gave me on the bus in eighth grade. That one made me want to spit. I remembered the feeling of being young and walking at dusk and how the air seemed to tingle expectation.

Further up, we found a toad. Lucy Mae pressed her flat snout up against that warty thing and inhaled deep. Poor guy just sat there. It made me laugh. At the top of the hill we were accosted by a little girl, sitting alone on her porch.

“What’s your dog’s name,” she asked, running over to me.

I told her and she chattered away. She had on a layered ruffled skirt and a shirt that said “princess”. She kept fluffing up the skirt when she talked to me. She brought me her puppy—a brand new teacup Chihuahua. It fit in one of my hands. I held its softness and pressed my nose to its puppy scent.

Her grandfather was weed eating in the back, because of the snakes, she said. And he told me to stay right here, she said. Don’t go anywhere.

I asked her her name and she told me. She told she just moved there, that soon she would go to school at church, and that she lived with her mommy and her mammaw and papaw. We stayed and talked—sitting in the grass on the edge of her yard—until her grandfather called her to come in.

The light had all but disappeared and the stars were opening their eyes. And I knew it was time to head back to the house. Because I had found what I was looking for. Perspective.

How about you? How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.

Grab my button at the bottom of the page and join us:
Sharing with L.L. Barkat today too: