It’s a beautiful quiet morning in my house. I’ve got the windows open so there’s a cool breeze flowing through and there’s a little bird chirping it’s head off. I’m convinced in a few minutes I will think she’s rather annoying rather than delightful [smile] but for the moment, she’s a pretty sound.
Kennedy, my youngest, has started at a new preschool this year. We’ve been in love with it since the moment we stepped foot in the doors. The preschool is in one of those old historic church’s. While I love our very modern church, I just feel something different when I step foot onto the campus of this church. No way is God ever confined to a historic building but there’s just a presence about a place that people have worshiped at for decades.
So I enjoy taking her to and from this church. One of the first days we were there I was sitting in her carline waiting to get her cute-little-blondie-haired-big-bow-wearing self, and I saw them: a man and a beautiful woman. Smiles dawned their faces as they walked by. One had a yellow lab, one had a black lab.
I noticed as they walked past the parking lot that the man had a back pack on, the kind that you would put a child in. So, from my observation I began to see that this was a blind couple who was walking to pick up their child from the same preschool.
I wish that I could tell you how I sat there and admired their ability to overcome their blindness. But the truth was, I sat there and felt bad for them. I began to picture how difficult it must be to raise a little child that can see, while both parents cannot. Thoughts about dangers and the frustrations they must face overcame my thoughts, to the point where tears began to weal up in my eyes.
And then, I felt so lame.
While the compassion side of my brain was starting to overcome my logical side, I heard a voice in my spirit that said, “Nicki, sometimes you are more blind than anyone in this world. You are looking at someone and feeling compassion for the things that you think hinder them, rather than seeing their strength to overcome. Your pity is for yourself, not them.”
Ouch.
It’s true. I’ll admit it. It was not one of my finest moments.
I’d dare to guess that couple does not wake up each morning wondering what hindrance’s they will face. As hindrances and obstacles come up…they deal with them. But do we wake up that way? Not always. It’s very easy to not see the hope, the triumph and the bright future with our eyes open to the world. There will be a thousand hindrances to numb us to the point where we won’t overcome.
The enemy loves to fill us up with those:
You’ll never get that promotion at work, your not the best candidate.
You’re kids are never going to behave right, you don’t have natural mommy skills.
Marriages don’t work, look at the divorce rate in this country.
That weight will never come off, you’re too busy to lose weight.
The thing is, with that sweet blind couple I observed…their hindrance’s are there. They just choose to not see them! And it’s the same with you and I. Hindrance’s are not going to go away, they will always be. But…we don’t have to see them!
He that is in us is greater than he that is chasing after us.
Our ability to overcome has nothing to do with what we can see, it has everything to do with what we cannot see. Don’t see to be hindered. See to overcome. Triumphs are waiting big and small. This day is a great day, a day to overcome.
See it as that.
