I was walking yesterday when I passed a little old broken wall with some dead twigs clinging to it. Something you can pass on most walks in the country most times. As I looked at it I began to think could I see this any other way? The state my head is in at present I thought it should be simple to do.
I smiled as I took a photograph of it and my wicked little mind began to turn and I heard the cogs clank into place. If I can change this into an abstract and if I show both the photograph and the painting nobody will ever have the nerve to ask me if it is a painting or a photograph? That being said I I am sure I have some friends who just might have a wicked sense of humour.
It is a bit like the glass half empty or the glass half full. How do we look at life?
Here are three very little illustrations from my preaching days that make the point better than I ever could.
The first is a little true story about a father and son out walking together. The son tells the tale.
This morning, like he has every morning for the last decade, my 86-year-old grandfather picked a fresh wildflower on his morning walk and took it to my grandmother.
This morning I decided to go with him to see her. And as he placed the flower on her gravestone, he looked at me and said, “I just wish I had picked her a fresh flower every morning when she was alive. She would have loved that.”
The loss of his beloved wife had shown him not only how much he missed her but how much he wished he had been different.
The second is another true tale told by a friend.
Today, on my 47th birthday, I re-read the suicide letter I wrote on my 27th birthday about two minutes before my girlfriend showed up at my apartment and told me, "I’m pregnant.’"
She was the only reason I didn’t follow through with it. Suddenly I felt I had something to live for. Today she’s my wife, and we’ve been happily married for 19 years. And my daughter, who is now a 21-year-old college student, has two younger brothers. I re-read my suicide letter every year on my birthday as a reminder to be thankful.
I am thankful I got a second chance at life.
Here the reality of a family and a new life let him see that the life he had was not useless.
Lastly, something that happened at a funeral I was conducting and will never forget.
As the funeral progressed I reached the point the husband of the deceased wanted to say a few words.
He said, “Life is the leading cause of death of my lovely wife. Margaret, LIVED her life, passionately. She died doing what she loved to do. If she didn’t do what she loved, she may not have died, but she wouldn’t have truly lived either.”
Life is always how you decided to see it.
Amazing how crazy a fuzzy head can make you see a wall looking so different.
Have a great day.
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