see the light

I wait through traffic with a prayer on my heart.  Adam sits beside me, bobbing his head in time to the music—what a beautiful Name it is, having dispensed with my pick-up pleasantries about his day with a perfunctory, “Good,” as in, it was good and that’s all there is to say about it.  As I recall, God had been similarly efficient when describing His creation.

I gaze out the windshield at brake lights flashing red in front of me and the yellow tictictic of blinkers, suddenly catching sight of a row of swirling blue lights in the distance.  I slow down, making space for some of the drivers who have gotten caught in a snaking line behind whatever emergency lies ahead, and in my mind, I shift to praying for anyone who may be injured and in trouble.

Light beams through a tiny crack in our windshield, star-shaped, stretched along the reaching fissure, as though the lines dividing earth and sky have suddenly dissolved.  I smile, realizing I have been so distracted by everything happening around us that it’s only just now, because of a broken scar on our windshield, that I finally notice the full beauty of the afternoon sunlight.

The day the windshield cracked, when a pebble flew out of the tire of a car blindly sliding across four lanes of traffic in front of us, I had been none too happy.  The sound had been unmistakable, a hard, sharp, cutting so quick Adam and I had glanced at each other immediately in silent alarm and then, dismay.  Right away, I noticed the tiny pit in the windshield and the hairline cracks stretching out on either side and sighed.  Breaking is painful every time, inconvenient every time, unexpected and jarring and hard.  All it takes is a tiny pebble, hurled through the chaos.

I had lapsed into a critique of the driver of the car and then apologized when my ever-present Shepherd firmly pointed out that I didn’t know anything about that person He loves except the very little bit I could observe from my car window.  They’d been in a hurry and had flung a stone, very likely without any intent to cause harm or any understanding of that potential.  And now the sunlight slips through that window wound, the little crack through which I see the road ahead, and glistens bold, making a stunning jewel of it.

Light gets in through our cracks.  I’ve heard that idea articulated so many times it has become cliché, some bit of fluffery meant to comfort me, although it never takes away the sting of being torn.  But today, I understand this is more than just a devotional thought to file away or to send on social media as a picture with fancy fonts.  Jesus chose bread, ripped and divided, as a representation for His own body.  He broke it in front of them and gave thanks.  He wore a crown, of thorns.  For the joy set before Him, the Word says, He endured the cross.

I glance over at Adam as we crawl by the emergency unfolding beside us and find him squinting, closing one eye and then the other, watching the scar-light change with each shift in his perspective.  It reminds me of the early days, when as a small boy he read books in a decidedly Autistic way, sliding them ever-so-slowly out from behind a chair while he stood on the other side, or dragging them by millimeters past a joint in the wall, always more fascinated with the change in his viewpoint than the story on the page.

We’re both so captivated now by the light as it pushes through that crack that I can’t help thinking about how God uses the broken-up places in our life, the inevitable cracks, to draw attention to His beauty and strength.

At least two Sundays a month, Adam stands at the entrance to the auditorium before worship, waving his hand in a stilted way, telling people good morning and welcome, reading names off of nametags whenever he can to call people by name, his deep voice sounding brittle and robotic.  His obvious awkwardness makes so many people pause just briefly and really see, and then they enter worship wearing a special kind of smile because they’ve noticed how good God is, how beautiful, beaming through the sacrificial service of someone who struggles to speak.

The daily challenges our children face, the things we would point to as our greatest burdens, are also the very things that really draw our attention to God’s grace.  God sets His joy before us, like a feast.

You didn’t want heaven without us.  The music swells.

“So, Jesus, you brought heaven down,” Adam says matter-of-factly, following the song, still bending his head back and forth, still squinting one eye and then the other to consider the scar-beam, completely oblivious to me.

I know if I repeat the words Adam has said or touch him, I’ll break the spell.  Adam will shy away from me, as though I’ve deeply invaded his privacy.  He has this place he goes just to be with Jesus, has always had this tender heart for worship because of his affliction.  When I pray for Adam to be able to talk more, to understand more, to connect more here, I always say I don’t want it if it would mean He lost this precious intimacy with God.  What’s it like there, where he goes?  I wonder and I don’t know; I can only see the glory through Adam’s smile, wide and free.

You brought heaven down.  I suddenly see, all over again.   Jesus is the smash of Light pushing through the cracks, overcoming our darkness, obliterating all futility.

“In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus had acknowledged, had acknowledged it right out loud so that in the middle of it we might find His peace.  “Take heart!  I have overcome the world.”

I resist my difficulties though, instead of following Paul’s advice and “counting it all joy,” instead of giving thanks for the worthiness implied, as the disciples did.  I know that the strength of Christ is more completely on display in my weaknesses, but my heart still pleads for a way to draw attention to Him that involves no vulnerability or humility.  I ask God to be glorified in our lives, magnified, seen, while at the same time asking Him to take away our hard stuff.  Sometimes, I want the resurrection without the cross.

Yet somehow this afternoon, as the sun beams down and pours through and makes that star in the car, I can see how the two belong together, the break and the blessing.  I can see how they make a gospel movie again and again, right smack in the middle of everyday life.

I can see, all over again, how Good Friday gave way to Resurrection Sunday, drawing every eye to Jesus.